








'V A. ' , ' '* 


- X, 


^ v» 


■ r^ “ , . / ^■^ ' . -y * rS^ 

**,• ' > ■ : >«vh >w 

' ''' ■ , . •<*. -’.V 


V, 




‘--v 

■■ Sr ^ >n 


■ t A . ,»• ;- .-A •■ 

,. n „ ' r ■ 


’,r^ 


V ‘5 <■•'' '', - '■ r ' ■ i- 

: V* . 


^■v: 

' ■*■ *' / 

'• * .' 


- 


r'. i\’Wr 






V:^' 


. 

# 




V • 


^V- 




.• «,r'. ■• 




r •• : • 


• A-r-r 


.^■V 








^ ' » _• 1 






J < 




-••'^ -y 




■ > 


^ V. :..c ' <-■ - 




•-•aT . '■ / 


s. > 

l'- 


^ ■« 

r / ■ 


•■■■ \'- 


f . .; 




. *■ 


^ - N 


V ■* 


A. 

* I • 



' -IT 




r. 


■ -• 


'f* 


/» 










' c'? 


^ A 

t' • V 


>^-•4 

’ I*. 

- ‘ - 


r't- 


‘A ■• 

« ^ ■ 


- 

•r-—, •- -s .* 

. " - . - *• ■•-■ • ■-■_■• *■ 4 

-••-'■ ■• * -‘-v^ ''• 

. • - ,- . A #»> 'Z-^. 

0 ^ 



* , . » .-^-* 4 

^ • -< 

.;. . . '.' , 


V 

X 


A ■"'3; 

.: ■ -■ " ."■ > 





,• ■ - 


w .V y 




'k 


* 




y -.■' 




-^^v' -A'- -N'r' r, ■ ■. :'-. 

'■/•■ -,' '■..•'■'■'A' ■ , -r ■ 

- •’ "• ' ' '• ' 




■ ' ■■ .' ' 


■A"'- : 


> 

•V-, 


, ,. ‘ '■*- 


'k ^ 


. .<?*• 


r ‘L 



A 

*r*' 








:v 


AA V 


: It'. 


I* *. 


4 . 


A; '-^•■'^:v': ^ 


( 






/ 




V v- 1 I 


ki:;\ 

<' -/'V 


;/. 


' ^ V 

’C* 'A -S'' '•-•'rf*. ■ V' '’■‘ji-'Xr -' 


p/c' 


,' >■ 

» 


'‘f.. 



- U 


' ’ '* t ■ 


^ f' 






f S' 

, • J • . ** - 

1. 

Ar''^ 

•''?■'> 'T^ 




Y : /'. 


..•< ■ 


N. 

■ • -r 




. . “r-y 


Ac- :• 
' > i.iv 






Lv ' ] ’} s.'-* .V 








: • •■ - -J . : ^ -• 










• jvvi * ♦; 














‘‘k 


>i-j.v! 


•AM 


/ 






ft7. 






•o'» 


nVW^ 


‘t' 


* 


i# 






»■ 


k 4 J 




.<y^ 

•liA> 




., <*tj 


N v«- 




iV»' 


^)fj 




Li'w? 










*'. ..‘i . Nj 




>yv»?> 










PAii' 


:-:• J 


•: » v-t 

'¥‘. 


/J 






:4< 




f*' 'V .'•[»* •' ♦* •' 

/•' T-^ t ' - -I 

i *'v ' . 


f , 


kT-» 


> V- j . 

* ‘ * 

Ku 




^0., 




my. - • ;rv,:,-,'r't: . ' 

?v •« ■ *• ' "v*'^ ' ;■ m-* ■> ■ ' i i’*' ' . ■> 


rxTj. 






^ly 


:^i 




.’.t" 


j 't.' 




v-. 




fz-i 




®f' 


1^ "4*®: 


tiWj' 


■ f*.V ,^A^- . 


'-.•?.v, 




;f- 




V 0 


iv *’ 


t4.> 


r^-kl 




,»-u‘ .V 




a. 


*> 






'ir: 




-r- •-> J • ‘ 

T 




-St 






*/; 


6> 








kT’-V ► 

■r.'' , ^ " 

'' ^ 


r:*^/ .t 


-:r: '.5':r •' ■y'>\?l^iM. 


' * » vl 


rv.J 5 t 


r^* * 


L' '.y 






v^i 


j-iyi 








'■V?: 




r>i^% 




•«> 


■ ..; ~wS^^w * >4 ^,- 


■I 










I ■ ^ I • i r"i ■ •* 




r&; 






«**/l 


e i.; 




rif^, , 






/S' 


T^-.. 






. •Ti.sV 






- ■' • ■ 


5Jv- -■ 


rr*! 


r>^V. 




<1 


?’^i 


' - / 






.; V ' 








^.f^ 




i /•' ' ./.•*' 




HU. 


ii# 


':!i :3 
















^:bi. 












1 


RIZPAH’S HEEITAGE. 



BY MRS. NATHANIEL CONKLIN. 

(JENNIE M. DEINKWATER.) 


I. Tessa Wadswokth^s Discipline . . $1.50 
II. Eue^s Helps 12mo. $1.50 

“‘Rue’s Helps’ is by Jennie M. Drinkwater, the author of ‘Tessa Wads- 
worth’s Discipline.’ That was such a charming book in every way that we felt 
sure of liking this, and we have not been disappointed. TTie boys and girls, old 
and young alike, will relish it. It is the sort of book which ought to be multi- 
plied on our Sabbath-school library shelves.” — Congregationalist. 

III. Electa 12mo. $1.50 

“ The special charm of this book is that the people in it and the scenes described 
are so natural, so true to experience, that the reader finds himself as much inter- 
ested in them as though they were real persons. This we consider very nearly 
the perfection of literary art.” — Christian Instructor, 

ly. Eieteenj or, Lydia’s Happenings . $1.50 

*“ Fifteen’ is as sweet and touching a story, for a very unpretending one, as 
we have met with in a long time.” — Congregationalist. 

V. Bek’s First Corner .... 32mo. $1.50 

“It is one of the charms of Miss Drinkwater’s stories, their naturalness and 
home-likeness. ” — North Protesta nt, 

VI. Miss Prddence 12mo. $1.50 

“ a bright, natural story of New England life, illustrating the power of grace 
to change the heart and keep a soul sweet and patient in adversity. A helpful 
book, free from sensationalism, and good for the Sunday-school library.” — S. S, 
Journal. 

VII. The Story of Hannah $1.50 

“ Hannah’s character is well drawn, and her cheery strength and unfailing 
trust in God ought to be helpful and inspiring to those who read her bright 
words.” — S. S. Times. 

VIII. That Qijisset House ...... $1.50 

“There are sections of the story which are equal to Mrs. Prentiss’s best writ- 
ing, as, for instance, the diary of Mrs. Huntley, with its application of God’s 
Word to the circumstances of human life. We trust ‘That Quisset House’ 
will be on the table of many of our best homes, we are so sure of its awakening 
thought and giving the.highest pleasure. It should take a high place among the 
most prized works of religious literature.” — Christian Intelligencer. 

IX. Isobel’s Between Times . . 12mo. $1.50 

“ Another of Jennie M. Drinkwater’s delightful stories, full of meaning, and 
told in so pleasing a manner, that one dislikes to lay it down until the last page 
is read.” 

X. Rizpah’s Heritage .... 12mo. $1.50 


ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS. 


RIZPAH’S HERITAGE 


» 

BY 

MRS. NATHANIEL CONKLIN 

tl 

(JENNIE M. DRINKWATER) 


** Be not only good, but good for something.” — ^Thoreau. 

** Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.” — Carlyle. 

The earth is crammed with heaven. 

And every common bush afire with God.” — Mrs. Browning. 

” This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of 
me, saith the Lord,” — Isaiah. 



NEW YORK 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS 

530 Broadway 


Copyright, 1887, 

By Robert Carter & Brothers. 


ELECTROTYPED BY 

THE orphans’ press — CHURCH CHARITY FOUNDATION, BROOKLYN, N. Y, 
CAMBRIDGE PRESS— JOHN WILSON & SONS. 


TO 


MY GIRL, 


MARGARET 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. RIZPAH 7 

II. THE CHEYILS . .15 

♦ • 

III. NAMES 32 

lY. GILES AND GRIEEIN 43 

Y. GEIEEIN^S IDEA OF THEM 54 

YI. ^^TOHK FEIEND^^ 66 

YII. FLOWERS AND FLORENCE .... 73 

YIII. BOBOLI GARDENS 79 

IX. GILES^ MOTHER 99 

X. LETTERS 109 

XI. MR. YANDERYEER IS FULL OF TALK . 120 

XII. GRIFFIN^S LECTURE ]32 

XIII. ONE OF BEE^S AIR CASTLES .... 138 

XI Y. THANK TOU^^ 144 

XY. HER WAY 153 

XYI. ALPEN STOCKS 162 

XYII. LAMP LIGHT 171 

XYIII. IN THE MOONLIGHT 180 

XIX. ON THE HILLSIDE 188 

XX. KINNET 198 

XXI. A MOOD 209 

XXII. GROWING 217 


VI 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER page 

XXIII. BED-TIME TALK 237 

XXIV. PHILIP ... 245 

XXV. THE HEAD OE THE TABLE 260 

XXVI. HEWS 274 

XXVII. -WHEREAS MT MOTHER ? . . . . . 284 

XXVIII. ^^THAT SAME HOUR 294 

XXIX. BLOSSOMS AXD ERHIT 301 

XXX. SPECIAL AXD DEEIXITE 310 

XXXI. ^^XOBODT KXOWS^^ 322 

XXXII. BEEORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED . . 337 

XXXIII. WHAT RIZPAH READ 350 

XXXIV. GRIEEIX^S CALEXDAR 373 

XXXV. IX A ELHTTER 383 

XXXVI. EOREBODIXGS 389 

XXXVII. A BIT OE HHMAX XATHRE 398 

XXXVIII. EAST ASLEEP 409 

XXXIX. THOUGHTS EOR JUXE 416 

XL. TIRED OE COUXTIXG 441 

XLI. EXTRACTS EROM MRS. OLMSTEAD^S 

LETTERS 451 

XLII. YOURS TRUE^^ . . .' 463 

XLIII. EXTRACTS EROM GRIEEIX^S LETTERS . 473 

XLIV. AX OLD BOOK 485 

XLV. GYPSIES AXD MOAB 493 

XLVI. AUXT MATILDA 507 

XLVII. ^^DEAR BUDGET 514 

XLVIII. EOR ERMA 518 

XLIX. ' HERSELE 533 


RIZPAH’S HERITAaE. 


I. 

RIZPAH. 

If Griffin Vanderveer — who, in after life, had a 
passion for the study of human nature — had been 
in the sitting-room that August noon that Eizpah 
rushed in from school dangling her brown straw 
hat by the string, with a fresh rent in her sleeve, 
and the stains of blackberries on her pretty ruffied 
white apron, he would have set it down on his 
mental tablet — from which little concerning people 
was ever erased — that she was a dark little slip of 
a thing with a rounds brown face, passionate eyes 
and hanging black locks, as agile as a monkey, as 
graceful as a kitten and as shy as many another 
wild thing ; a face susceptible of many emotions, 
tiny brown hands that would clutch as well as 
caress you, with a stamp of the foot to emphasize 
her rapid words, or to defy you ; a small somebody 
to love you or to hate you, perhaps as you chose 

( 7 ) 


8 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


more than as she chose; a great deal of some- 
thing to mould as you would rather than as she 
would. 

But he was not in that room to make any notes ; 
he was travelling with his father and mother in 
Germany. He was five years younger than the 
child Eizpah; she was ten years old — as far as 
any one knew — and that day he would have been 
rather afraid of her, and have stood aloof until he 
understood her better. 

Horace Snowdon, the old lady’s lawyer, had 
acknowledged to her that morning that he was 
“shy of the child; one cannot tell what is in her 
veins, you know,” with a glance to see if he were 
treading too heavily on dangerous ground. 

“No, one cannot tell except as it comes out,” 
was the sharp reply, “and nothing to hurt has 
ever come out yet. She has never told me a lie, 
she has never done an underhanded thing, and she 
is as generous as sunshine. I do not believe she 
draws a selfish breath.” 

“ But she has a temper and a will, and such a 
hold as she takes on things, and such a hold as 
things take on her.” 

“Yes, she never lets go,” said the old lady, 
bringing her thin, seamed lips together, “ neither 


RIZPAH, 


9 


do I. We are well matched. There is something 
of me in her after all.” 

“ There is something of humamnature and old 
Adam in her,” laughed the lawyer. “ Well, it 
takes some of every sort to make all sorts, as the 
old saying is. 1 am glad she is your property, 
and not mine.” 

“You are not as glad as I am,” was the quick 
reply ; “ there is one day’s work in my life that I 
do not regret !” 

“You know nothing, absolutely nothing, of her 
parentage.” 

“Absolutely nothing — unless what I have reason 
to believe be absolute knowing. I do not want to 
know anything more.” 

“ What does she know ? ” 

“ A big boy at school — ” the old face reddened 
with anger and the trembling lips were pressed 
hard together, — “twitted her with being found 
in a basket, and said she was a tramp and 
that I took her in to keep the dogs from run- 
ning off with her ; and she ran panting home 
at recess and burst in and fell on her knees 
beside my chair and cried and sobbed herself 
into hysterics. I took her up into my shelter- 
ing old arms and told her the solemn truth. I 


10 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


told her she was God's and mine. And she was 
satisfied.” 

“ I should think she would be,” said Mr. Snow- 
don, winking a tear off his eyelashes. 

An hour afterward, — the doctor said the excite- 
ment of making her will might have had some- 
thing to do with it, — the old lady was stricken 
down ; it was two days before she could speak to 
Eizpah. 

These two days and two nights, still in her 
stained apron and torn dress, the child lay curled 
up on the foot of the large bed and no one dared 
disturb her. 

“She will die first,” the neighbors said. 

At the sound of the muffled voice and the 
broken utterance : “ Where’s — Eiz — pah ? ” the 
dead, dry eyes were lifted, and the light of life 
shot through them. 

“ You must eat and be strong,’' said the doctor ; 
“ you must be her nurse and take care of her.” 

She gave a satisfied moan when the child’s lips 
touched her face. 

Poor old Aunt Eizpah Had not her life been 
one long experience of evil? Married at fifteen 
to the rich stranger who had begged and bought 
her of her father, her married life one constant 


RIZPAH. 


11 


warfare, for her will was as imperious as his, 
travelling everywhere as the caprice seized him, 
without a permanent home, without real friends, 
losing her five children before they could romp 
and run like Eizpah, hating her husband with a 
rebellious heart, when she was not forgiving him 
in penitence and remorse, burying him in a land 
of strangers and coming home rich, childless, 
widowed, to find her father dead and her mother 
in the Asylum for the Insane, to die without ever 
recognizing her, with none of her own flesh and 
blood to love, and having no acquaintance with 
her husband’s family, why should she not open 
her hard, shut heart to the cry upon her door 
stone ! She was sixty that night she took the 
child in ; she was eighty-five that morning she 
died in her arms. 

When Eizpah the child became Eizpah the 
maiden, Griffin Vanderveer would have studied 
her with a smaller measure of success ; shyer than 
ever, more passionate, if more subdued, with the 
sweetest way of yielding and the strongest way 
of holding on, interested in everything that 
breathed and grew, devoted to her one friend with 
a devotion that would have given life itself. 

“ Loyal, steadfast, brave, unselfish, true,” wrote 


V2 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


Giles Olmstead to his mother, one evening, sitting 
at his desk in the wayside school-honse. 

“You will die,'’ the old doctor said to her, during 
the year of nursing her old friend through the 
effect of her second stroke. 

“ That’s what I want to do,” was the passionate, 
quick breath of reply. “ I want to give her all.^’ 

Eizpah the woman, a woman when many girls 
are in their girlhood, was not unlike the child and 
the maiden. She had lost nothing that was worth 
keeping; she was self-reliant, and yet as clinging 
as a child, frank and yet strangely reticent, giving 
all of herself and yet demanding nothing of ano- 
ther, with a blending of pride and humility that 
was the most touching thing about her when you 
knew her story. Not only did she belong to no- 
body but nothing belonged to her with any inher- 
ited right of ownership ; her inheritance was noth- 
ing besides inherited tendencies to evil; sometimes 
she felt that she had inherited no tendencies to 
any living or true thing. 

Everything that had belonged to her that night 
that she was found, the soiled piece of flannel, the 
torn frock, the worn shoe, Aunt Eizpah had hastily 
consigned to the kitchen fire; and when she had 
bathed the child and wrapped it in soft white flan- 


RIZPAH. 


13 


nel and taken into her bosom to sleep, not a ves- 
tige of her birth was left to her; she belonged to 
God and Aunt Eizpah. And when Aunt Eizpah 
died she still belonged to God and Aunt Eizpah. 

None of the Chevils knew the story, for Eansom 
Chevil had not told them ; he knew of the strange 
adoption at the time. Mr. Snowdon had written to 
him at Aunt Eizpah^s request; and when she made 
her will he travelled five hundred miles to show it 
to him, so that the old lady’s only relative might 
not interfere with the child’s rights when she was 
not there to protect them. 

“ I do not want her money,” said Eansom Chev- 
il, “ my girls have enough from their mother and 
me.” 

“You will want the girl some day,’^ returned 
the lawyer. “You will be proud to call her a 
Chevil.” 

At the funeral Eanson Chevil was introduced to 
“ Eizpah Chevil by the old lawyer. 

“She looks like an Indian,” he said to Mr. 
Snowdon. 

“I think so myself; and sometimes I think she 
has a Japanese cast.” 

“ She’s an ugly thing,” said the father of four 
handsome girls. 


14 


RIZFAH'S HERITAGE. 


Well, yes, speaking impartially,” said the law- 
yer, “ but I know her, and she’s not ugly to me.” 

“ I wonder what my girls will think of her ?” 

“She will make them think something of her, 
don’t you fear. Where are they ?” 

“ In Florence. I am going out to them. We 
expect to spend the summer thereabouts.” 

“ Take her with you ; she has never had one 
day’s vacation in her life.” 

After a long talk with her. Pater (as his four 
girls caressingly called him) wrote to his wife that 
he had a new kind of a specimen to bring them, 
and that he had learned afresh that “the fairest 
flower in the garden of creation was a young 
mind.” “A wild thing growing out among the 
weeds, buf worth cultivating,” he wrote. 


n. 


THE CHEVILS. 

“ If you desire to be wholly comfortable with a 
sort of inspiration about it, come with me and I 
will take you somewhere,” promised Griffin Van- 
derveer, as he pushed his arm through that of his 
friend Giles Olmstead, as they sauntered over the 
Ponte Vecchio one sunny afternoon. 

“ Doffit take me anywhere else now, I beg of 
you,” was the half-laughing rejoinder. ‘‘ Where 
haven’t you taken me to-day ?” 

‘‘ You have been roving over this old bridge for 
the last hour ; can’t you get anything else into 
your head ?” was the somewhat disappointed retort. 

“You forget that I am a new comer ; you have 
been here all winter.” 

“ And wish I hadn’t. But the Chevils would 
stay. Blossom was quoting that nobody should 
live in Florence in the winter, and nobody should 
die here in summer.” 


( 15 ) 


16 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ It is just the place for my mother. How 
quietly she will drink in everything.” 

‘‘ It is her first vacation abroad, too, isn’t it ?” 

“ Her first real vacation anywhere. She takes 
no rest except change of work. Her school vaca- 
tions are all spent in work of some kind ; she is 
the most alive and alert person I know — ^yourself* 
excepted.” 

“ My life has been all vacation. I shall buckle 
down to work some rainy day, old fellow. If I 
were cut out to love my father’s profession, and 
excel as he did, why didn’t I inherit his talent and 
push ?” demanded Griffin, with angry emphasis. 

“You were not born cut out ; you have to &ecut 
out,” laughed Giles ; “ cut yourself out.” 

“ Eather a painful process ! My father was wise 
to hedge my inheritance around as much as he 
could, and to give my mother all the power she 
could possibly hold. He died when I was seven, 
and he saw the future good-for-nothing. To-day I 
am almost twenty-one, and I have no education to 
speak of and no definite plan of work.” 

“You like a good time too well,” remonstrated 
his friend. 

“ I know it,” was the frank and grim assent. 

“ Do you remember what Dickens writes about 


THE CHEVILS. 


17 


this bridge ?” inquired Giles, while Griffin was 
considering his latest warning. 

“I don’t know what anybody says about any- 
thing. The girls have been cramming Florence 
into me all winter, and I am not crammed yet — ex- 
cept with them.” 

“ Cozimo First established these goldsmiths 
here.” 

“01 know such things as that,” cried Griffin in 
disdain. “Bridget poked that into me one day 
when I brought her here. She quite raved about 
his marrying Camilla, the daughter of one of the 
goldsmiths on the bridge, and told me her sad and 
disappointed story. Those old Florentines lived a 
good deal in a little while ; you can believe any 
romantic story here in Florence.” 

“ And even live one yourself,” added Giles. 

“ Nothing ever happened to me, and never will. 
I’m too C(Tmmonplace to be a hero ; bread and but- 
ter tastes too good to me. Budget makes these 
stories very real and to-day-ish.” 

“ Budget ! That is one of the girls you told me 
about.” 

“ One of the Chevils. Each one is worth telling 
about. Mother met them in Paris and wintered 

with them in Nice. They have been abroad three 
2 


18 


RIZhAH^S HERITAGE. 


years. They admire my mother, and tolerate me 
for her sweet sake. They all despise me for not 
being intellectnal ; they like me because I am 
somebody to take them around, and they can poke 
at me as if I were their big brother. They will all 
throw me over for you. I have an insane way of 
bringing my friends in to eclipse myself. I intro- 
duced Hal King to a friend of mine, and they were 
married in less than a year. I had known her for 
two years and never thought of it. I call in the 
Lung’ Arno every morning to take flowers, and 
every afternoon to see if they are looking fresh, 
and often in the evening to see what I can do for 
some of them. Pater came only last month ; he 
spends part of the year with them. I’ve had to be 
the head of the family all winter.” 

“ Pater ? Who is he ? ” asked Giles, mystified. 

‘‘Their father! They call him nothing else. 
Look at the view now. This is exquisite.” 

In the centre of the bridge in the space left 
open, there was a glimpse of sky and water and 
handsome buildings. They stood silent gazing up 
and down the beautiful Arno. 

Griffin’s brown eyes were like a girl’s in their soft 
shining. Budget said his eyes shot more fire and 
melted into more softness than any eyes she knew. 


THE CHEVILS, 


19 


“ It is fine ! ” said Giles ; ‘‘ my mother shall cer- 
tainly come to Florence.” 

“1 told the girls that another difference between 
■QS — we are full of differences — is that you take 
the oversight of your mother and my mother takes 
the oversight of me.” 

It was two years since the friends had been 
together for any length of time ; weekly letters 
between them had not failed. GriflSn had told 
the Chevils that he and his friend were as “ silly 
as two girls/’ about letters. 

They had much to say to each other. Griffin 
had never kept a secret from Giles since he had 
confided his plans for Christmas presents to him 
when he was ten years old ; Giles was seven 
years his senior. 

Giles had not fully returned this confidence ; he 
had never told him that Kizpah Chevil had re- 
fused him ; he remembered now that he had not 
written him at all about Eizpah Chevil. It was 
not his way to give confidences. 

Grifiin chatted lightly as they sauntered on to 
the end of the bridge and entered the shady part 
of the town, turning into the Via de’ Bardi, one of 
the oldest streets in the city. 

“ The old wall was five or six miles long, with 


20 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


eight gates,” announced Griffin, in his character 
of guide, “but it was demolished a year or two 
ago. These old streets are very narrow, as you 
can see. I’ll show you the handsome, solidly 
paved ones by-and-by.’* 

“ I know this street from i2omo?a,” said Giles. 

“ Oh, Romola ! That is what Blossom reads and 
goes wild over and will have me read. But it all 
sounds made up to me and not real and alive ; the 
places are real and the times; and poor Savonarola 
was a grand fellow, but there’s so much stuff put 
in. I told Blossom, and she looked at me with 
those eyes, and said I hadn’t mind enough to 
appreciate the genius of it. I daresay I haven’t. 
One of those girls is mad at me all the time. 
They are real girls, not tragical, like Eomola ; 
Eomola would have looked me dead in two 
minutes. I take great pains to propitiate the in- 
jured one. It makes it very lively for me ; I 
can’t exist in stagnation. Bee and I are not on 
speaking terms just now because I spoke slight- 
ingly of one of her pet pictures. I shall take her 
the prettiest flowers to-morrow.” 

“ What names ! Blossom, Budget, Bee, Bud.” 

“ And Eizpah ! That is worse than all. That’s 
heathenish.” 


THE CHE FILS. 


21 


‘‘Eizpah !” repeated Giles, surprised into visible 
emotion. “ Isn’t Eizpah a Jewish name?” he ask- 
ed with instant self-control. 

“She looks Jewish enough — all but the beauty. 
She is about the ugliest girl I ever saw. She sent 
a thrill of repulsion through me that morning I 
found her there ; such painful striking contrast to 
the Chevil girls ! Pater brought her when he 
came. It was a surprise to them, and Blossom in 
her lovely way did not take it kindly. She was 
rather uppish about it at first. There’s a mystery 
about her that I can’t fathom. She is a Chevil, but 
they never call her cousin. I think she resembles 
Pater. She is very foreign — long narrow eyes, like 
a Japanese, high cheek bones and sallow cheeks — 
with a mahogany red in her cheeks when she 
flushes, as she does every five minutes; she is all 
cEaracter — not like anybody I ever saw, — as back- 
woodey as you please — never was in a city of any 
size until she started to come here ; knows no more 
of society than Caspar Hauser, but never does any 
thing rude ; she is ridiculously old-fashioned in 
what she talks about — has read all the old books 
that ever were printed. 

“ Mamma Chevil apologized to me by saying that 
her last fifteen years had been spent in the coun- 


22 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


try in a sick room. I shouldn’t think she had had 
any years before that ; I reckon she is about twenty 
— but when she stands in her perfect uninstructed 
grace you are charmed. She dresses to perfection, 
makes a picture of herself every time — always in 
black or white or white and black — she doesn’t 
know any better than to be in perfect taste. She 
paints everything she sees — she is as unconscious 
as a child two years old ; she has no manner, she 
is completely without manner, as shy as a dove, 
and she believes that you 'are as true and unselfish 
as she is. She talks to me as she does to Pater or 
Bud. She is the youngest thing I ever saw in my 
life, and the quaintest. I find something new in her 
every time I call. She seems alone and very sad ; 
and they don’t understand her. There must be 
come relationship; she has some kind of a claim on 
them. Mrs. Chevil is gracious to her and Pater ad- 
mires her so much that every one of the girls is 
jealous, but she doesn’t see it. She never sees 
anything unpleasant.” 

“You wax eloquent.” 

“ So will you,” said Griffin, warmly. “ She never 
talks about herself or her past, or speaks of any 
one belonging to her. She is interested in every- 
thing outside of herself ; unlike most people she is 


THE CHEVILS. 


23 


not much interested in herself. She hasn^t had 
any self, for some reason. To me she is Eizpah — 
a study.” 

“You must be a study to her,” said Giles, won- 
dering how she was affected by a man like Grif- 
fin Vanderveer. 

The frank, handsome, honorable, winning fellow 
at his side, with his boyish manliness, his warm 
heart, his upright life, his self-forgetfulness and 
charming little enthusiasms was as attractive as a 
girl to Giles Olmstead ; he had willingly under- 
taken the commission to meet him at Florence and 
spend a year in travel with him as tutor, friend 
and comrade. 

“I feel safe about my boy when he is with you,” 
Griffin’s mother had urged. “ You are the soul of 
caution.” 

The two mothers were in England ; they had 
planned to spend the month of May in Florence 
with their sons. 

“Yes, she likes me,” Griffin went on in his 
easy way ; “ she likes to talk to me. We have 
been together only this month of April, and 
I feel as if she had known me always. You 
know I give myself too quickly. And now 
you have come, and May begins to-morrow. 


24 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


and we shall have the May sunshine all of us 
together.” 

“ What did the Chevils come here for ? Does 
mamma want to marry off her girls ? ” 

“No!” thundered Griffin indignantly; “she 
never thought of such a thing. Ilou would be cut 
out of her good books if she knew you had said 
such a thing. Blossom is only nineteen.” 

“ I beg her pardon — and yours. I was thinking 
of some other mothers.” 

“ Pater would put you out if you took flowers to 
one of them especially. Every true knight is a 
brother of girls, and that is what we are to them. 
I am glad Eizpah has a guardian. She is such a 
simple puss. I imagine she has money.” 

“Who is the Pater ?” 

“ Eansom Chevil, Esq., of New York city. Bud 
says they belong to all the world now, and asked 
her mother if they would have to marry foreign- 
ers, and declared her intention of not marrying an 
Italian count, like Margaret Fuller Ossoli.” 

“ How old might Miss Bud be ?” 

“ Eleven.” 

“ She is the youngest ?” 

“The youngest, and the beauty.” 

“ How did Pater make his money ?” 


THE CHEVILS. 


25 


“ One does not have to be a prince to live in 
Florence, even in a palace ; and they do not live 
in a palace, only in very comfortable lodgings. 
But he has money, and she has ; rather she has it 
in trust for her children, inherited from their 
grandfather. She can only spend the interest. She 
tells me everything. He died two years ago ; their 
present affluence is something rather new to them. 
He has been rich a good while, though ; made his 
money in soap. Are you keeping your eyes open 
as well as your ears ? This is the Palazzo Carri- 
giani, built in 1283 ; and it was once the Hospital 
of Saint Somebody, and the mother of Petrarch 
was born in it. Bee tells me about Petrarch and 
his verses. I shall be tolerably well versed in Flo- 
rence before they are through with me. But my 
interest is all with living people ; it is the Floren- 
tines of to-day that 1 care for. 

“ Pater is literary besides knowing how to make 
soap ; the girls take it in the natural way ; the 
mother has no more literary taste than my mother, 
and the girls bore her with their books, I know. 
Like so many rich Yankees, Pater was a poor 
country boy, and left the small farm to do some- 
thing in the big city, I don’t know why he tried 
soap-boiling. Benjamin Franklin did not make 


26 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


himself rich by it, and he had a better chance ; 
but he got rich by it, and wasn’t married till he 
was rich, about forty-five, and then he married a 
young girl who had a rich father ; so she didn’t 
marry him for his money, for she’s in love with him 
to-day with the most perfect devotion, old fellow 
that he is, and she in the Indian summer of 
her life. He is a dried up, crooked old Pater^ 
with a gruff voice, a manner not over-refined, 
a hard head and a soft heart, with a wife like 
the sunny side of a peach and four girls like 
spring sunshine. To say nothing of the young 
Hindoo.’’ 

“ I wouldn’t call her that, if I were you,” in a 
tone of repressed irritation. 

“ Why not ? ” struck by the change in his com- 
panion’s voice. ‘‘ 1 didn’t mean to make fun of 
her. Her long narrow grey eyes and black eye- 
brows and straight black hair are rather out-land- 
ish among those girls. She has the smallest hand 
with one cluster of diamonds that is a blaze of 
light. It contrasts oddly with her plain dress. 
It means something to her ; she doesn’t wear it for 
show. She is the most real thing I ever saw in 
the shape of fiesh and blood.” 

“You haven’t told me about one man, Grifiin; 


THE CHEVILS, 


27 


are your friends all among girls ? ” asked his 
friend, after the slightest pause. 

These are the only girls I know well. I donT 
have time to know any others,^’ he laughed. “ Oh 
I know lots of English and Americans. You will 
feel at home in a week.” 

Would he ever feel “ at home ” with Kizpah 
again ? Giles wondered ; perhaps it was more to 
the point to inquire if she would ever feel at home 
with him again. 

“ I wish I knew how old Rizpah is ! ” exclaimed 
Griffin, puzzled, “ her cheeks are young, and her 
hands, but her expression is so old sometimes, and 
she is so repressed and still ; I can’t decide wheth- 
er it is years or experience.” 

‘‘ Ask her,” counselled Giles, gravely. 

“She would not take it amiss. I’ve changed 
my mind about it twenty times already; she says 
odd old-fashioned things ; not a bit like a girl in 
this nineteenth century.” 

For instance ? ” 

“ Oh, when Bee was teazing her about some 
English fellow, she said: ‘Bee, I do not like that,’ 
and Bud asked her if she had ever been engaged; 
she thought she must have been, she was so ‘ old,* 
she said: ‘I never thought about such things.’” 


28 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


‘‘ Is that SO rare ? ’’ 

“ Why, yes ; with the girls I know.” 

I confess I do not know girls.^’ 

“ That is why I want to show you these girls ; 
doesnT Longfellow say something about ‘ a smile 
of God ’ in connection with maidenhood ? ” 

“ You ! Quoting Longfellow ! Griff, old boy, 
something has come over you.” 

‘‘Yes,” was the grave assent, “something comes 
over me with every new influence.’^ 

Giles had paused to stand before the door of a 
church; over the door was a representation of 
the Virgin with angels. “If you stop before every 
church you will have your hands full,^' said Griffin, 
a little impatiently, “ there are one hundred and 
seventy-two churches in the city, antiquated 
enough, but few of them completely finished. I 
didn’t relish the inside of them.” 

“We mustn’t pass the churches by if we would 
understand the people,” said Giles, qufckening his 
steps. 

“O, I don’t take the people as a nation; I pre- 
fer the study of individuals.” 

“ Farrar says that the history of the world can 
be found in the history of a dozen lives.” 

“ I like that,” said Griffin, emphatically. 


THE CHEVILS. 


29 


This quotation was to him what a volume would 
be to many; he fed on it for days. 

I’ll study a dozen lives and learn the history of 
the world, he added, lightly, “ the history of the 
world is not made up of remarkable people.” 

“ How does a life get into history then ? ” asked 
Giles. 

“History is only a small part of the world; I 
mean the world as only One knows the lives — the 
unwritten history of the world.” 

Those unwritten years of Kizpah^s ! Giles thought 
he knew them as no one else knew them. Those 
years that were written in her self-repression and 
silence, in the years unlike a girl’s life, and now she 
was a woman with no girlhood behind her ; days and 
nights of patient endurance, tireless energy, cheer- 
ful doing — with no girl friend, no outlet for her 
natural enthusiasms, her only companionship a 
paralyzed old woman with a dulled intellect, cling- 
ing to her like an infant to its mother, loving her 
with the selfishness of a child, burdening her, 
taking all and giving her a weak, complaining 
affection, and then throwing her out upon the world 
she had been kept in ignorance of, dependent upon 
rich people who had no understanding of her past 
and no sympathy for her present. 


30 


RIZPAH S HE RITA GP. 


He had heard that Eansom Chevil had inherited 
the bulk of his aunt’s fortune, and that to Kizpah, 
the adopted daughter, was left the old house and a 
fe w of the many acres. 

He had learned the history of the diamond; Eiz- 
pah had shown it to him and told him that Aunt 
Eizpah had said that it meant that somebody ovmed 
her and always would own her. And that same day 
when he asked her to marry him, she replied with 
a start of pained and bewildered surprise : “ I nev- 
er thought of it; oh, I couldn’t ” 

The brisk voice of Griffin broke in upon his re- 
verie. 

“ Here we are at the Palazzo Torigiani, and if you 
must look at pictures here are some worth seeing.’ 

“ What is the style of the pictures ? ” 

‘‘ I don’t know styles. Come and see. There’s 
Mordecai and Haman, and a Madonna and Child, 
you see them everywhere ; and Esther and Haman 
and Christ and the Woman of Samaria with a won- 
derful piece of landscape, and Adam and Eve and 
some others. I am not sure that the Adam and Eve 
are good likenesses; Blossom would make a lovely 
Eve, and I’m not sure that I wouldn’t be a good 
Adam. The first woman was deceived, poor thing, 
and the first man listened to her* What can you 


THE CHEVILS. 


31 


expect of human nature now-a-days ? The weak- 
nesses of human nature are wonderfully attractive 
to me. I feel so akin to all of it. I feel the per- 
fection of the Strength that must uplift us.’’ 

“ How the boy is growing ! ” Giles thought, with 
a thrill of pride and fondness. 

“ I brought the Chevils to look at them. Kiz- 
pah has never seen pictures. She paints flowers 
until the breeze stirs them, and you feel their fra- 
grance ; but she has never seen anything like this. 
Everything about her makes you feel that life is 
worth living ; her life, at any rate. You can’t be 
near her without living, too. She knows the 
secret. Come in and look, and then you will have 
something to talk to Kizpah about.’^ 


nr. 


NAMES. 

Mrs. Chevil told Griffin Vanderveer, when he 
first came to them, that they had taken lodgings 
on the Lnng^ Arno for the view and the sunshine; 
their apartments gave you the sense of air and 
sunshine ; you did not feel yourself to be within 
doors ; the rooms were like enclosed gardens and 
filled with the joyousness of young life. With 
that cluster of girls around their beautiful young 
mother, some of the English and Americans 
thought there were no rooms like them in 
Floi^nce. 

On the morning of this last day of April, Pater, 
as usual, had his cup of tea in his bedroom ; 
mamma and the girls breakfasted together, linger- 
ing and chatting, planning excursions and talking 
over the events of the previous day Eizpah 
thought she had never seen people who had so 

much to say to each other ; but then, poor child, 
( 32 ) 


NAMES. 


33 


she had seen so few people; the history of the 
world would have been a most unsatisfactory his- 
tory had she had to learn it through the half doz- 
en people she had known well, Kone of them 
were interesting; Giles Olmstead was most inter- 
esting of all, but he had spoiled even the memory 
of studious afternoons and evenings by frighten- 
ing her with that last question or demand. It 
was painfully like a demand, and the shock was 
with her yet. How thoughtless she had been, 
how cruel, if she had led him to think that her 
friendship included that It happened while Aunt 
Eizpah was too ill to be told, and there was no one 
else to whom to breathe a breath of it; it was the 
only “ secret she had ever kept from Aunt Eizpah. 
When the old lady recovered her usual strength, 
and asked why Mr. Olmstead did not come any 
more, she said that the term was ended and he 
had gone to teach elsewhere. 

I’m sorry,” said the old voice. 

And Eizpah was a little sorry, too. 

“ Van der veer said he would bring his comrade 
to-day,” remarked Bud. 

“Mamma, hear her,” cried Blossom. 

“Pater always calls him Vanderveer,” explain- 
ed the rebuked and unabashed Bud. 

3 


04 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


“And you have all papa’s privileges, I suppose,’' 
said Blossom. “Between papa and Griffin, you 
begin to talk just like a boy.” 

“ I like to,” said Bud. 

“ He wouldn’t come last night,” observed Bud- 
get. “ I should think he would be afraid of so 
many girls. Griffin says he isn’t accustomed to 
girls. He will be somebody else to hear me called 
by my ridiculous name ; mamma, it is downright 
malignity in you to allow it.” 

Budget’s brown eyes were swimming in tears 
of unfeigned vexation. 

“ And her real name, Emily, is such a pretty 
name,” interposed Bud, who was always on the 
side of the injured. 

“ Let’s strike,” proposed Bee, merrily. 

“ Strike Pater ! He did it,” said Bud. 

“ Let us band together not to answer any one 
beside Pater, not even our precious mamma, unless 
we are addressed by our Christian names. Griffin 
is unbearable when he calls me Budget.” 

“ 0 girls,” exclaimed their mother in comical 
alarm, “ when your names are remnants of your 
babyhood ; T should feel as if I had lost you all.” 

“You would soon get over it,” said Bud, philo- 
sophically. 


NAMES, 


35 


“ When I am married Pater will have it in the 
papers : ‘ Budget, second daughter of Eansom 

Chevil,’ said Budget. 

And then Bud, with one of her sudden inspi- 
rations, remarked that getting married changed 
the lady’s name. 

“They all called me Kittens at home, and I 
never struck ; I liked it,” said their mother, with 
her happy laugh. 

She had told Griffin that she had never had a 
real sorrow in her life. 

“That is why you have no mercy on us,” was 
Budget’s explanation; “people who are not sen 
sitive make very disagreeable companions.” 

The amused little shout of laughter reached 
Pater in his seclusion. “Bless the darlings,” he 
ejaculated. 

“ Pater calls you Kittens now,” said Blossom ; “as 
a family we make ourselves ridiculous; it is in 
very poor taste to bring ourselves into prominence, 
mamma.” 

“Mine is the worst,” said Budget, dolefully; “it 
reminds one of a rag-bag, which I sufficiently do 
myself without being labelled.” 

“ Mine is harder to bear,” said Blossom ; “ think 
of labelling a girl of nineteen with anything so 


36 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


fresh and sweet as a blossom. Think of an apple 
blossom, and then look at me.” 

They all thought of an apple blossom and then 
looked at her. Eizpah’s intent eyes studied her a 
long while ; in her aching heart the dark maiden 
would have given all her possessions to be fair and 
fresh like Florence Chevil. Every time she stood 
before the mirror she was reminded that she was 
not Aunt Eizpah’s flesh and blood. She was 
the flesh and blood of some wandering mother 
who had not loved her well enough to keep her 
for her own, but had thrown her out into the 
darkness of a summer night. But had she not 
loved her a little and cared whether she lived or 
died, by choosing that doorstone for her resting 
place ? Perhaps she had waited out in the night — 
or sent a little sister to watch, as a slave mother 
did once — ^to see that she was taken in ; perhaps 
she gave her up because some one else could better 
care for her. It was no marvel that Eizpah seemed 
older than her years and graver, with such a 
sorrowful wonder in her heart. 

Eizpah thought the girl was not unlike an apple 
blossom, with the freshness of the morning in her 
eyes and the flush of sleep in her cheeks ; her 
dress of palest green heightened the illusion ; her 


NAMES. 


37 


favorite color was the green of young apple leaves. 

The reflection of Blossom’s self was the prettiest 
thing she ever saw. She thought she would rather 
die than be as ‘dark and ugly ^ as Kizpah. 

She was very naughty and natural, and did not 
think much about being good ; to be happy and to 
be admired was all that she was awake to ; her sis- 
ters were so accustomed to her little selfishnesses 
that they never thought of them. She was Miss 
Chevil, and the prettiest ; why should she not have 
her way T 

“ Mamma, were you as pretty as Blossom ?” in- 
quired Bud. 

Mamma regarded her eldest daughter with stu- 
dious eyes. 

Blossom colored and smiled. She did not believe 
her mother was ever half so pretty. 

“ No, I was not,” she answered serenely, “ but I 
was as vain.” 

“ O mamma ! ” pleaded Florence. 

“ I was sinfully vain until I took my beauty from 
the Hand that made it. And then I was grateful.” 

In all her life Florence had never thought of be- 
ing grateful; it was too bad in mamma to spoil 
her enjoyment with such stupidity. 

“Mamma, Blossom can’t help seeing it,” excused 


38 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


Bee. ‘‘We stand side by side before the mirror, we 
both have eyes — we did not make ourselves; we 
can’t help seeing. She gives a pitying look at me 
and I give an admiring look at her.” 

“ Bee, how do you feel about it ?” inquired Bud, 
with her air of investigation. 

“When I was little I rebelled,” acknowledged 
Bee, frankly. “ I don’t think about it now ; there’s 
so much else to think about that I don^t have time 
to think about myself. And — it isn’t sour grapes 
one bit, but I can’t see that Blossom has any better 
times, or that any of you love her better than you 
do me. She is noticed and talked about, but I 
wouldn’t like that. Eizpah,’^ giving her an uncon- 
scious thrust, “ I wish your name wasn’t Chevil, 
for now Blossom cannot be Miss Chevil, and she 
glories in it.” 

Griffin would have said that the “ mahogany red ” 
was in Eizpah’s cheeks ; but it faded and left her 
startlingly pale. Should she tell these girls that 
she was not, like them, a Chevil ? 

“Eizpah likes her name,” said Bud, “she told 
me so. It belongs to her, like her ring, from her 
best friend.” 

“ W e are not getting on about the names,” said 
Florence, with her impatient frown. 


NAMES. 


39 


“ No, dear, and your baby name has not been the 
best thing for you,'’ rebuked Mrs. Chevil, as rebuke- 
fully as she ever spoke. 

Griffin said her tone needed no words. 

I shall say Floss,” commenced Bud, ‘‘ that is 
like her hair, when she lets it down for me to 
brush.” 

“ And me,” appealed Budget, with comical pa- 
thos. 

‘‘Poor darling, you shall be Emily henceforth. 
And Bud shall be Grace. 

“ Is Bud bad for me, mamma ? ” inquired Grace, 
with all seriousness. 

“ Oh, your name is so pretty,” cried Florence, 
“ and you are so small. Strangers think you are 
only nine ; and you are the bud of the Chevils.” 

“About me,” said Bee, “but mine is a contrac- 
tion of Beatrice, and altogether lawful. I will not 
make it the occasion of an unfilial quarrel.” 

“And now the strike is ended,” cried Budget 
merrily, “ and not an hour’s work lost or the police 
called upon.” 

“ Eizpah has scarcely spoken,” said Mrs. Chevil, 
bringing the silent girl within the circle of sym- 
pathy by her tone and glance. 

“ The man who keeps his mouth shut will speak 


40 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


no idle words, as Peter the Hermit observed,” said 
Budget, with the air of one giving a profound 
quotation. She had a provoking way of originat- 
ing “sayings” and attributing them to historical 
personages. Often the girls were beguiled into 
believing them real ; and upon one remembered 
and triumphant occasion Pater himself had been 
deceived. 

“ My name is everything to me,” said Eizpah. 
“ I think it is almost as much as Christian is to 
those who are named for Christ ; I was named 
for the old lady who adopted me.” 

“ Pater’s queer old hermit of an aunt,” cried 
Bud ; “ he told us she had been so gay, and then 
-went into the back woods and shut herself up. 
But you were her neice.” 

Her lips were pale again, her gray eyes burned 
into black. Kising she stood behind Mrs. Chevil’s 
chair, leaning both hands upon it. She would tell 
her story, and they might send the intruder back 
to the wild wood where she came from ; it might 
be better for her to be hidden away from curious 
eyes and talking tongues. 

“ She found me, one night,”— her dry lips moved 
with dilSculty, — “ one dark night. I cried ; I was 
a baby not a year old. My mother, or somebody 


NAMES, 


41 


who had no right to keep me or give me away, 
brought nie and laid me there, and she took me in 
and burned up all that I was wrapped in — a beg- 
gar^s child, or a gipsy’s child — an unwelcome child 
to some poor mother. There was no clue to me ; 
there was nothing pretty or nice about me. I 
belonged to her, and did not know that I ever 
belonged to any one else.” Her voice became 
clearer, but her words were rapid and passionate ; 
it might have been the wild little girl ten years 
old who was telling her shameful story. 

“ I wrote Bizpah Ghevil in my copy book, as the 
other little girls wrote their names, and I tried to 
write it well to please Aunt Eizpah. One day a 
big boy told me that I was only a tramp and a 
beggar, and I ran home to her and asked her what 
it meant. What she said has been the treasure of 
my life.” 

“ What was it ? ” asked Bud. 

‘‘ She said I belonged to God and to her, and no 
one could take me away. And she had had me 
called by her own name when I was too small to 
speak. The next day I told the children about it, 
and said my name was Eizpah Ghevil. In her will 
she left her house and the land to me, and all her 
money except five thousand dollars she gave your 


42 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE, 


father, because he was named for her husband. I 
have twenty -five thousand dollars because I be- 
longed and do belong to her. 1 do not desire to 
be Miss Chevll ; I will go away if you do not want 
me to stay, if you think I have no right.’' 

With both her arms about her, Bee’s head was 
on her shoulder and her tearful eyes hidden. 

‘‘ I think papa should have told us/*’ said Flor- 
ence, in her worldly wise voice. 

“ It can’t make any difference/’ Bud burst out in 
affectionate remonstrance. 

“ No, cousin Eizpah, we are glad to have you,” 
said a firm voice behind her, as a hand was laid 
on her bowed head. Pater had spoken and decid- 
ed it. 

There would never be a breath of opposition to 
her staying. Mrs. Chevil was glad to be relieved 
of the responsibility of speaking ; Eizpah felt that 
she had not spoken. 

Emily came and kissed her, and Bud adopted 
her immediately by taking possession of her hand 
and playing with her ring 

‘‘It has been quite a morning of names,* said 
Florence, speaking easily, and mentally vowing 
that she would never call her “ cousin.' 

“ And Eizpah has the best of it,” said Emily. 


IV. 


GILES AKD GRIFFIN. 

“ Something to talk to Eizpah abont.” 

How many times as he stood before the paint- 
ings those words repeated themselves. He could 
never again have anything to talk to Eizpah 
about. 

As Giles Olmstead sat that evening in their 
handsome room at the Hotel Paoli, the words kept 
buzzing themselves through his brain. 

Five years ago they had had a great deal to 
talk about. He had written three times since to 
her and received the same reply: “ I cannot think 
of it.'" But she was free now; might she not think 
of it? She had given him no reason then — no 
reason why she could not think of it , had she a 
reason now ? Had he not a right to some reason ? 
If she did not love him was not that sufficient rea- 
son? She had never seen any one to compare 
him with ; but had not girls always an ideal of 
their own ? 


( 43 ) 


44 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“The areola tissue consists of two forms of 
fibrous tissue^ white and yellow, intermixed in 
varying proportions, together with a great quanti- 
ty of capillary vessels, nerves and lymphatics — 

It was Griffin’s voice ; but he seemed to himself 
to be bending over that disfigured, hard wood 
desk, reading by a smoking kerosene lamp in that 
wayside school-house where he taught by day and 
studied by night. 

That year of study had not been lost; the study 
of medicine was the only thing in his life he had 
begun and not finished. 

“ I say, 01m stead,” whined Griffin, “ it’s an 
awful grind, and I never shall get through. 
Those long words pulverize me. You didn’t go 
through yourself. I’ve forgotten every ugly word 
of it I ever studied ; I don’t see how I came to re- 
member that.” 

“ I gave it up for something I am better fitted 
for.” 

“ A vagabond literary life ! Let me be a Bohe- 
mian too.” 

“ Oh, you are rich, you can’t. You can’t know 
the excitement of a little money to-day and none 
to-morrow- By the way I must write to-morrow. 
I can do my article for the Encyclopedia as well in 


GILES AND GRIFFIN. 


45 


Florence as anywhere. I haven^t any baggage but 
books.” 

“ And your brains ! You know application is 
not in me. I never learned anything in college ; 
I don^t see how I ever got through. I don^t be- 
lieve I did ; I was always in disgrace. What 
little I know sticks to me in spite of every effort 
to throw it off. It was only love and compassion 
for the mother of such a luckless son that kept me 
at my books so long as I did stay. I didfft gra- 
duate, you know. Vm no more fit to be a doctor 
than my old boots.” 

‘‘ With all your love of human nature.” 

“ Oh, I doff t go into the bones and marrow of it. 
I say, Giles, they thought it was mighty queer you 
didn^t call with me to-night.” 

“ Did they express themselves to that effect ?” 

“Blossom looked it.” 

“ How did you excuse me ?” 

“I said you had some writing to do. Eizpah 
looked at me as if she doubted my word ; her face 
tells all sorts of stories. By the way, I amused 
them with stories of your childhood and youth, 
and Eizpah said I seemed to be in your confi- 
dence. I told her we never had any secrets from 
each other.” 


46 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


Giles reddened angrily and unclasped his hands 
from the back of his head; Griffin thrust his hands 
into his pockets and marched up and down the 
room. 

“ I^on’t make a fool of yourself and me.” 

Griffin’s reply was a long and loud laugh. 

‘‘I say, what makes you so sharp? You are 
awful hard on me to-night. I have forgiven you a 
dozen sharp speeches; are you trying to pick a 
quarrel with a peaceable fellow ? Would any fel- 
low, let loose with plenty of money, behave better 
than I do ? I know I need the restraints of home 
and friends to keep me from wild company, but I 
do believe” — his eyes filling like a girl’s — “that 
there is something stronger that keeps me 
straight. I owe a great deal to you, old fellow, 
and Pm glad to acknowledge it; but youVe been 
horrid cranky since I came from the Chevils, and 
you began it by refusing to go with me.” 

“I beg your pardon. Van; I am in a mood 
to-night. The truth is I have kept a secret from 
you, and I am restless under it — the truth of it.” 

“ Keep it as long as you please, but don’t hit me 
with it every half hour. There’s a change come 
over the Chevils since I was there; they are 
difierent to Eizpah; mamma is more gracious, ray 


GILES AND GRIFFIN, 


47 


dainty Lady Blossom is more distant, and the 
others are more considerate; I felt a difference in 
the atmosphere. She was sadder too. Bud told me 
she had been telling them all about Aunt Rizpah.” 

Giles clasped his hands behind his head again 
and looked across the room. Had GriflSn had a 
hint of her history ? 

“ Did Bud tell you anything about her?’’ 

“Who? AuntRizpah? No.” 

“Are those girls in society?” Giles inquired, 
after a moment. 

“Not what society calls society. They make 
calls with mamma, and we go on all sorts of excur- 
sions. Rizpah is old enough, but I can’t fancy her 
in ‘ society,’ I don’t believe she was ever in a room 
with ten people in her life. Oh, Bud did make a 
revelation. Aunt Eizpah left lots of money to 
Eizpah.” 

“ She did I ” exclaimed Giles, dropping his hands 
in his surprise, and springing to his feet. 

“What is that to you?” asked Griffin, in equal 
astonishment. 

“ Nothing,” dropping back again, “ but I thought 
the old lady had nothing to leave her.” 

“ You may as well out with it; you know Eizpah 
Chevil.” 


48 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


‘‘Yes, I do; rather I did five years ago. We 
have not met for five years. It was the winter — 
one of the winters I taught, and the old lady 
engaged me to read English literature with 
Kizpah and teach her arithmetic ; she knew 
nothing of arithmetic.” 

“ Why didn’t you tell me ? ” 

“I couldn’t. I have never talked of her to 
any one,” and then he added, as if excusing him- 
self for not giving him his confidence, 

“ My mother knows very little of her.” 

“ Five years ago ! She was a girl then.” 

“ A‘bout twenty — a year older, perhaps. If I 
had thought of meeting her here I am not sure 
that I should have come. You told me about 
them all, and did not speak of her.” 

“ She wasn^t here then.” 

“ Is Mr. Chevil a good friend to her ? ” 

“ Her best friend ; and his friendship is worth 
having. He is like a guardian; herself and 
money will be well-guarded.” 

As Giles made no reply, Griffin marched up and 
down and rattled on; he could not but understand 
his companion’s secret ; his heart ached for the 
man Eizpah Chevil had found it impossible to 
love. 


GILES AND GRIFFIN. 


49 


“ Pater is eccentric ; he does and says what he 
likes and nobody thinks any the worse of him. I 
shouldn’t wonder if that low- voiced, lighted- footed, 
sweet-tempered, strong-willed wife of his took him 
to task upon private occasions. 1 wonder if that 
vain, self-idolizing Blossom has the making of a 
woman like her mother in her. I he beauty of that 
mother is that she sees all her girls’ faults, and 
waits so patiently, and understands so thoroughly 
and hopes so entirely that they can’t but outgrow 
them. INothing vexes her; she knows they are 
only girls and doesn’t expect them to be women. 
1 believe 1 admire her most of all. Budget said 
one day that Pater had never spoken a cross word 
to one of them, and Bud said it was because they 
were all girls and he wouldn’t be so ungdntle- 
manly. Blossom told me afterward that he had 
spoken roughly to her once, and then begged her 
pardon with tears in his eyes. Kizpah said to 
me—” 

He stopped abruptly, wondering if it were kind 
to talk about Eizpah. 

“ Go on,” in a hard voice; ‘‘I haven’t heard her 
name for five years? felft me all you can about 
her.” 

“ She says the queerest things,” Griffin went on, 
4 


50 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


naturally. ‘‘ You might know she had lived by 
herself — and read the Bible: ‘they all believe 
that Jesus Christ lived, and died, and is dead, I 
should want to die, too, if he were dead. I get so 
tired of having no one to talk to. Aunt Kizpah 
and I had prayers together every day, and she 
always asked a blessing when we ate together; 
and here there is none of it, and I am homesick 
for it.’ Think of her saying that to a fellow like 
me ! And then I told her that you and I had join- 
ed the church at the same time — that was before 
you came, and she looked so bright at me. We 
were standing before that picture, the Woman of 
Samaria, and she told me something — that Christ 
told that woman what he had not told his own 
disciples: that he was the Messiah.” 

“That proves what she thinks of you; that is 
her stamp of valuation set on you. I’d keep it, if I 
were you.” 

“ I don’t see what she sees ia me to make her 
say such things to me. I’m afraid of losing it ; 
she must see that there isn’t anything of me, or in 
me, or to me.” 

“ She sees the truth,” said Giles. “ I suppose she 
saw that I wasn’t worth having. I’ve worried her 
out ; I suppose she fairly hates me by this time.” 


GILES AND GRIFFIN 


51 


‘‘She listens when I talk about yon.” 

“What do you think she would do ? Tell you 
to stop talking? Did she ever ask a question 
about me ?” Giles asked, hungrily. 

Griffin meditated: “No, she never did. The 
others do.” 

“Stop babbling about me now; you as good as 
told her to-night that I have talked about her to 
you. Now will you have the face to take me there ?” 

“ I don’t know,” Griffin hesitated, “ they expect 
you ; there’s nothing else to do.” 

“You know girls are not in my line.’^ 

“ I know nothing of the sort.’^ 

“ You often tell me that I am a dry old stick, 
my marrow is yellow, and yours has the red hue 
of youth, said Giles fraternally. 

The “ red hue of youth ” pulsed through every 
energetic drop in Giles Olmstead’s veins, it burned 
in his eyes and rang out in his laugh, it told in 
every firm step he trod; the rush of enthusiastic 
life was in every thought, spoken and unspoken ; 
he had something to live for, and he lived for it. 

As the young men stood side by side, they were 
of equal height : five feet eleven inches and a half ; 
both erect, finely proportioned, and perfectly 
developed. 


52 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


Bud said that Frederick the Great would have 
caught Griffin for one of his body guard. 

Giles had yellow hair, and eyes as round as a 
baby’s and as blue as old-fashioned blue china. 
Griffin’s hair was half a dozen shades of brown 
when the sun was shining on it, v.dth eyes in their 
changing lights to match every shade of brown in 
the hair ; both with shaven cheek and chin ; Giles 
with a long, tawny moustache, and Griffin with 
his cut close to his handsome lip, revealing frank, 
laughing teeth; Emily said (and girls are sharp 
observers) that Griffin’s teeth were as expressive 
of himself as his eyes ; Giles had a chin square and 
sturdy, Griffin was half-ashamed of his round chin 
with the dimple pressed deep in its centre ; it was 
more than boyish, it was babyish ; he was more 
provoked than pleased when Rizpah said to him 
that his features, like his life, were waiting for an 
awakened soul, and that at thirty he would not 
recognize the boy of twenty in his glass any more 
than the boy of twenty in his developed life. 
This same Eizpah, five years ago, had told Giles 
Olmstead that I camoaiV was written in every 
line of his face and sounded in every controlled 
tone of his voice. 

“ Blossom knows you are an old fellow — eight 


GILES AND GRIFFIN, 


53 


and twenty is stricken in years to nineteen ; she is 
prepared to reverence you/’ 

“ I wish you could talk about something else be- 
sides those girls,” cried Giles sharply. “ I came to 
Florence for some other purpose : I came to work, 
whatever you may do.” 

GriflBn wheeled around and looked at him. 

“ Florence sunshine is bad for your brain,” he 
said serenely. “ I’d go to bed if I were you.” 


geiffin’s idea of them. 


Ip you had asked Griffin Vanderveer to describe 
the Chevils to you he would have begun with Bud, 
because she was the youngest: a bud in perfection, 
with just a tint of a hint of what she will be when 
the sunshine of her happy life has opened all that 
is shut up within her; she would be noticed any- 
where ; a clear complexion, not pale, but with the 
color of health, a warm flesh hue in brow and cheek, 
gray eyes, large and full of thoughts that nobody 
knows, with hair of a peculiar red, with meshes of 
gold twined in falling to her waist, and brushed 
back from a low forehead and fastened with narrow 
velvet to match her dress, whatever it happens to 
be ; a serious little thing, talkative when she is in 
the mood, with a confldence in you rather than in 
herself, that gives her a pretty air of self-possession, 
listening to every word spoken, noting every look, 

feeling the changes in every tone, and putting her 
( 54 ) 


GRIFFIN^ S IDEA OF THEM. 


55 


own construction upon everything ; as high bred as 
a small princess ; they all have that air, their inher- 
itance from their mother. She has temper enough 
to keep her from being spoiled with too much 
sweetness, a woman’s devotion in her child’s soul, 
in love with her dear old darling Pater, and hang- 
ing around him and petting him as she petted her 
doll a while ago. 

Bee comes next in age. She is a month or two 
past fourteen ; she is as sharp as a needle; she looks 
down at you from her superior, complacent height, 
and cannot understand why you do not know 
everything. Griffin remarked to her, with his man- 
ner of brotherly frankness, that fourteen was apt 
to erect a pedestal for itself She is a lank, sallow 
slip of a girl, rather graceful than awkward, with a 
pretty way of using her hands that is entirely 
unstudied; dark hair, short and wavy on her neck, 
parted at one side because it will not part in the 
middle; gray eyes that never falter nor flinch, as 
unembarrassed as a two-year-old, with sarcasm 
enough in her voice to sting you when she feels 
like it; with a way of moving round and doing 
things and touching things that none of the others 
have ; she is an unrecognized power in the house- 
hold. Mamma turns from Miss Chevil to ask what 


56 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


Beatrice thinks about it; if she had been a boy Pater 
would have been proud of his only son ; she reads 
the Bible in a straight-forward natural way, and 
asks your opinion about things that puzzle her, 
and cannot understand why Blossom looks shocked 
and why mamma says she is the ‘ queer ’ one in 
her flock. She loves America with enthusiasm, and 
talks of its wealth and resources like an infant 
Congressman. 

And then Budget! She is a budget as truly 
as Bud is a bud. She is stuffed full of ideas and 
sticking out with them all over * her mind is like a 
boy’s pocket, more like a boy’s than a girl’s. Her 
friends at home are six boy cousins, and every one 
of them write to her every week. Pater calls her 
Boy Budget half the time. You cannot be sure 
what will tumble out flrst ; she reads and studies 
what her cousins read, and is looking around 
Florence through their eyes. She is studying 
Italian as wildly as if she could not have anything 
that she could not ask for in that tongue. She 
has studied Latin from her eighth year with those 
horrid boys. She is seventeen, short and dumpy; 
sometimes she looks like a bag with a string tied 
around the middle; a remarkable contrast to Bee; 
they laugh at each other and both take it sweet 


GRIFFIN^ S IDEA OF THEM. 


57 


naturedly. Her hair and eyes are as glossy and 
brown as a brown bird’s wing; she is as blithe and 
as unconcerned about her personal appearance ‘ as 
any bird in a tree ; she doesn’t know how to grow 
up; it is a family grievance that Budget will 
never outgrow herself. She speaks with effusion 
and is ready to talk upon aoy topic at half a 
minute’s notice ; round, rosy cheeks, dimpled 
brown hands that clasp and hold yours as if she 
liked you, with a cordial good-fellowship in her 
greeting to all ; she never feels uncomfortable, and 
never makes you feel so; she would look at the 
Queen with her brown eyes as frankly as she looks 
at you ; she is not concerned that her grandfather 
was a judge or that her father has several hundred 
thousand. She is a breeze, while dainty Lady 
Blossom is a zephyr. Blossom is a pink and wdiite 
and gold creature, too pretty for the every day 
affairs of life; she sniffs at you once in a while 
with her high-bred air. She feels her beauty and 
her father’s money as a young horse feels his 
oats. But she is a lady for all that, and makes 
you feel like a man, and a gentleman if it is in 
you ; Griffin told her one day, being provoked at 
her airishness, that some of the fairest blossoms 
were blown away and never came to fruit ; and 


58 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


Bud informed him the next day that Blossom 
cried about it. 

She regards twenty-year-old Griffin as “ callow.” 
No gentleman under twenty-eight was worth her 
serious consideration. She reads poems and nov- 
els and writes inviting descriptions of the view 
from Bellosguardo and of the pictures of Fra 
Angelico. She loves Bud, admires Bee, wonders 
at Budget, adores Pater, and could not live with- 
out her mother. Pater revels in his girls. He 
would be as tall as Griffin himself if he did not 
shrint into himself, and stoop with his years and 
bending over his library table. His clothes, 
always handsome, plain black, hang on him as 
they would on a clothes-pole ; he wears a wretch- 
ed flowered dressing-gown in- doors, long and 
dangling down to his slippered? heels ; he emphat- 
ically purposed ^o color his hair black, but with a 
will of its own it has turned green-black in streaks 
and shines like a green glass bottle. He wears it 
behind his ears and pushed straight back from his 
high wrinkled forehead. His short-sighted eyes 
peer through spectacles sharp and scornful, or 
genial and gracious, as his mood takes him ; 
long nose, wide thin-lipped mouth, shaved, skinny 
cheeks and chin, talking with a rush that seldom 


GRIFFIN^ S IDEA OF THEM. 


59 


pauses to catch its breath, aud holding on to his 
left-lung with both hands when he has worn him- 
self and yourself exhausted. He would take his 
heart out and give it to his girls if they cried for 
it and mamma said it was good for them. He 
reads all night and sleeps all day whenever he is 
inclined ; stalks around the town by himself and 
picks up odd acquaintances ; goes off on excur- 
sions by himself with a book*, and then returns to 
take all his family and their friends. He is as 
sharp as a razor, as watchful as a cat, as sly as a 
mouse, as careful as an old hen, and as faithful as a 
big dog. His girls caress him, humor him, fear 
him, obey him, laugh at him and adore him. 

His wife pets him and brushes his fur the 
wrong way with her soft fingers, and sits enthron- 
ed in his big heart, dear little woman, as if she 
were a wise queen. She is scarcely past forty ; she 
is the fruit where the girls are blossoms and buds. 
She has been like Blossom, but, of course, is faded 
beside the girl ; she is a low- voiced, light-footed, 
firm-willed little lady, with such a hold upon her 
girls that a look or touch of the hand is enough to 
express her disapproval ; she knows just how 
many buttons there are in the button bag, and will 
use up the old ones before she buys new. She 


60 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


plays duets with Bud, brushes Blossom’s long 
hair, teazes Bee, and romps with Budget, and yet 
they would no more speak a disrespectful word to 
her than to their father. She knows all their 
secrets, reads all their letters, and when they fall 
in love she will know it before they do. She 
never tightens and never relaxes the reins of gov- 
ernment; they are kept just there. 

She stood aloof from Eizpah at first, hardly ap- 
proving her; it did seem a pity to bring a stranger 
in among them ; they were all constrained at first 
by the presence of the silent girl in black. But 
Pater knew what he was doing ; she is as real a 
lady as any of them ; and much nearer the heart 
of things. When the time comes for to be happy, 
how happy she will be I 

There is a great deal in her yet untouched; 
some spring w^ould burst out some day, and the 
stream from it would make all her life green. 

Griffin told her so in these very words; she 
flushed and was silent ; then she said, ‘‘ I would 
rather that it should make another life green.” 

“Never you fear,’^ was his assured rejoinder, 
“just wait until you grow in the sunshine. You 
have the look of shady places about you.’^ 

That day he read to her a letter from his mother 


GRIFFIN'S IDEA OF THEM, 


61 


describing a “ tantrum/’ little Erma Morehouse 
had burst into because her aunt had insisted upon 
cutting her sister’s hair. Griffin had told her 
about the Morehouses. ^ 

The cottage of Miss Morehouse was out of town. 
His mother said that they were all trying to give 
it the aspect of a chalet, and its English surround- 
ings were hardly in keeping; but Mrs. Vanderveer 
loved everything that reminded her of Switzer- 
land; the summer she met Miss Morehouse and 
her brother, was among her never-to-be-forgotten 
summers; stored away in her memory were a 
great many never-to-be-forgotten summers and 
winters. 

Her own life was a great deal to her; she was 
always getting up some sort of excitement. He told 
her that she could work herself into believing any- 
thing about herself or any one else; seldom a day 
passed that she was not “ worked up ” about some- 
thing. 

At present she was worked up about the brother 
of Miss Morehouse, and not only about him but 
about his two small orphan nieces. 

Matilda, the elder, was a slender, big-eyed child, 
silent to sullenness, devoted to her dumpling of a 
baby sister, Erma, who was six, and appeared 


G2 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


about four; they were at the cottage with Miss 
Morehouse, in the especial charge of Mr. More- 
house. Matildas dislike to Mrs. Vanderveer 
amounted to positive aversion; Erma was too over- 
flowing with love to dislike any human being ; still 
she loved Mrs. Vanderveer less than any person 
she had seen since she came to England. 

Her love for Mrs. Olmstead, the friend of Mrs. 
Vanderveer, was unbounded; she confided to Ma- 
tilda that she loved her, “ like I loved Ayah.” 

“ I don’t love anybody in this house but Uncle 
Jack,” was Matilda’s response, “ and I wish every 
day I was dead. ’ 

The poor young mother had been buried years 
ago in the compound of the bungalow where the 
three years of her happy married life had been 
spent, and the invalid father brought his children 
home to England and died. 

“He died when he was needed most,” remarked 
Miss Morehouse, pathetically, “for the children 
dislike me more every hour of the day, and grow 
harder to manage; if it were not for their Uncle 
Jack I should give up and die in despair.” 

Almost every hour of the children’s misunder- 
stood and tearful day Mrs. Olmstead thought: “Oh, 
if I only could have them.” 


GRIFFIN^S IDEA OF THEM. 


63 


GriflSn had seen their photographs; they were 
taken wdth their arms about each other, the dark 
head and the red head close together ; he said his 
mother thought an envelope was not filled suffi- 
ciently to warrant paying postage unless it held a 
foreign substance or two; the letters were some- 
thing thrown in; the other things must be sent. 

His mother spoke of getting a letter ‘off,’ as 
shipbuilders might of launching a ship; letter- writ- 
ing was her chief literature. 

This Uncle Jack figured largely in her present 
state of literature; he imagined him a huge, lumber- 
ing sort of a fellow with a big heart and slow, silent 
lips, demonstrative in an undemonstrative way; 
his mother was always taken up with somebody 
now; this Jack Morehouse was her latest craze in 
friendships. 

Mrs. Olmstead, her dear Maria,” was a craze 
of her school days, and she had never outgrown 
it ; their aims and purposes were as unlike as their 
eyes ; no one infiuenced his mother as her friend 
Maria always had, and yet she had not made her 
in the least like herself. 

Mrs. Olmstead had not made her son Giles like 
herself either, and she w^as a powerful factor in his 
life; he was the most self-contained, self-reliant, 


04 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


oyster-like friend, a scatter-brain like himself ever 
had ; he admired him and yet he had no desire to 
be like him ; he kept cool and held on, and suc- 
ceeded in everything. 

He never saw in people what he said he saw; his 
(Griffin’s) imagination carried him off his feet; he 
was a solid bit of granite, and himself was the un- 
steady sea that played over the sand. 

Miss Eizpah, if anybody ever thinks me worth 
taking in hand they can mould me into some 
decent shape; the something in me buried under 
heaps of rubbish, is there — ^but perhaps no one but 
God thinks it is worth while ! He is at work upon 
me, I am certain, for there is something in me 
“grovdng. If it weren’t there I couldn’t stretch 
out my hands to him and cry out to him as I 
•■do.” 

Eizpah’s heart was unlocked that day, and when 
her heart became unlocked her lips were opened; 
after that she could speak to Griffin Vanderveer 
every thought that she wished him to sympathize 
with; she did not surprise him in her frankest 
utterances, the surprise was to herself. 

(His only surprise was that she could care to 
give anything so good to Aim.) 

Griffin’s idea of himself was that he was the 


GRIFFIN^ S IDEA OF THEM, 


65 


queerest mixture of agreeables and disagreeables 
ever compounded ; his humility was extreme ; he 
could not understand why any intelligent human 
being should be interested in him for one hour — 
except as a study of the unworthy in human 
nature. His audacity — of which he had a full 
share — arose from extreme self-consciousness; he 
was ever seeking to rid himself of himself; he was 
grateful to the Chevil girls for their frank and 
easy friendship, attributing it entirely to their 
kind heartedness, and not to anything attractive in 
himself. 

Had he known that to Florence he was her 
“ideal of manliness,” the knowledge would have 
been a shock as well as a surprise; had he 
known that she was striving to become his ideal 
of womanliness, he would have been inexpressively 
touched. 

“ My boy is having a new kind of education,” 
his mother said to her friend Maria. 

“ I wish my boy were ready for it,” was Mrs. 
Olmstead’s unspoken reply, “ but he is so fast in 
his own mould that he is difficult to shape.” 


5 


VI. 


‘^YOUR FRIEND.” 

“And I commanded you at that time all the 
things which ye should do.” 

The words burst upon Kizpah with startling 
force ; she read them again and again and again ; 
“ all the things which ye should do” 

Was not that what she wanted, and all she 
wanted ? 

Aunt Eizpah’s words — uttered the last day of 
her life, and hushed by the tumult of the changes 
of the last six months, had made themselves heard 
in these quieter days ; these days in which she 
stayed by herself for fear of intruding upon the 
complete little circle of father and mother and 
daughters : 

“ Eizpah, learn the will of God concerning your- 
self” 

He had commanded his will and made it plain 

to these people: there might have been some 
( 66 ) 


“ YOUR friend:' 


67 


among them who had no one to counsel them ; no 
one of whom to ask questions ; could it possibly be 
that his will for them was his will for her ? He 
had not changed in all these ages; human hearts 
and human needs were everywhere and ever the 
same; there might have been a Kizpah among 
those Jewish girls. 

They were leaving an old home and going into 
a new country ; they would want to know his will 
in a strange land ; his will would not be strange if 
all else were strange and new. She had stolen 
away from the laughter and light talk ; something 
in it hurt her to-night; that familiar face and voice 
among these that were hardly familiar, yet it 
brought an aching sense of loneliness and desola- 
tion ; for Aunt Kizpah had liked Giles Olmstead 
and spoken often of him after he went away. 

She was standing at a window with Emily, when 
the gentlemen were announced ; she had turned 
at the sound of her name to be introduced to Giles 
Olmstead. 

Mrs. Chevil spoke the names: “Miss Kizpah 
Chevil — Mr. Olmstead.” 

“ Giles is my great friend, Miss Kizpah,” Griffin 
said in his boyish tone of loyalty and admira- 
tion. 


68 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“And .Rizpah is onr new cousin/’ explained 
Emily. 

His cheek had paled like a woman’s; her eyes 
darkened and flashed; the hand she extended was 
nervously cold; would he press that hateful ques- 
tion again ? Had he come to thrust himself upon 
her? He had said he would never give her up 
until she belonged to some one else; and she 
never would belong to any one — except Aunt Eiz- 
pah. Griffin kept her on a sofa between himself 
and Bud; once she raised her eyes and he was 
regarding her with eyes she remembered ; she 
could never forget that look ; Bee came to join in 
the talk and she excused herself. They were 
gone now, but she had no desire to go out among 
the lights and the laughter, and the good night 
words. Bee tapped at the door to ask if she 
might do anything for her, and Bud came in to 
kiss her and to tell her of a plan to go to the 
splendid Boboli Gardens the next day. 

“ Griffin and his friend, and all of us.” 

Rizpah smiled, but made no assent. 

“You are glad, arent you? We want you to 
be glad all the time ! What are you learning 
about?” bending her head over Aunt Rizpah’s 
Bible. It was a large volume in clear type : Bizpah 


YOUR friend: 


69 


Chevil^ with the date of her coming was written in 
it in Aunt Eizpah’s very small hand. 

“ I am trying to learn the will of God/' an- 
swered Rizpah, gravely. 

“ Do you like to ?’* 

“ Yes.” 

“ Where is it ? Show it to me.” 

“ I haven't found it yet.” 

“ How do you know it means you ? questioned 
the child, perplexed. 

“I know.” 

Then Bud kissed her and went away. 

Was this Florence good for her ? They were 
very kind ; she was more at ease among them, and 
understanding them better each day ; but would it 
not be better for her to go back and be alone ; the 
* books, the sights, the merry talk confused her ; it 
was not easy to find herself among it all, she had 
lost her way, perhaps she was losing the right 
way. Alone at the farm she could learn what to 
do next, or in some retired boarding-house in the 
city, where she might study and read and visit mu- 
seums and art galleries and make a friend or two 
and remain herself unknown : if she were an alien 
and a thing apart, why mix with people who were 

curious and who would ask Questions ? 

5 


70 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


Among these girls she could not remain unno- 
ticed; she would be remarked as the odd one, and 
her relationship would be inquired about; had God 
a will about it, whether she stayed or went home ? 
Did anything she might choose or not choose 
make a difference to him ? It must, if she belong- 
ed to him ; but how did she belong to him ? As she 
had to Aunt Kizpah ? 

Had he found her when she was lost? Had he 
loved her and owned her ? Had he given her 
anything in his will — was not his will concerning 
her Ms icill ? 

Happy tears welled in her eyes and ran over her 
cheeks; she had thousands in AuntEizpah’s will; 
what had she in God^s will ? Dropping her head 
she rested her cheek (her face was young enough 
now to please even GrifBn) upon the open book she 
had read daily, and often thrice daily to Aunt Eiz- 
pah : she did not feel alone or in a strange land : 
she would have God’s will every day on earth. 
Aunt Eizpah had God’s will every day in Heaven. 

Early the next morning Bud brought a letter to 
her and stood at her side playing wdth the loose hair 
about her temples, as Eizpah’s eyes ran over the 
few surprising words : and, yet, was she surprised? 
It was like him to break the silence. 


“ YOUR friend:' 


71 


“ I was not aware you were in Florence when I 
came. I will go away at once if my presence dis- 
turbs you. I solemnly promise that I will never 
again distress you with any question or demand 
even a recognition of friendly days in the past, ex- 
cepting this — tell me if you accept and hold me to 
the promise, and if you would rather that I would 
stay away ?” 

There were no initials; there was no need; had 
he not taught her to write ? 

She half smiled over the “ question or demand ’’ 
in the way of putting it; was it not in reality an- 
swering that old question the second, third — how 
many times ? 

“A messenger is waiting: shall I bring your 
tablet?" 

The tablet was his gift; Aunt Eizpah had told 
him that it was Kizpah’s “birthday.’’ 

“ Yes,’’ she said slowly; “ I suppose I must reply.’’ 

She wrote in pencil in her firmest hand; a hand 
that had changed somewhat since the days he 
fashioned it : 

“ I would not rather that you should stay away. 
I accept the promise and depend upon it.’’ 

And then the pencil wavered in her hesitating 
fingers; should she give him anything after his 


72 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


years of faithfulness ? Would Aunt Rizpah be 
glad that she had found him again ? 

“ Upon how little provender love will thrive.” 
He had quoted that one day when she gave him 
the first fiower she had found at the foot of the 
garden. 

“ Here’s provender,” she thought, and wrote 
hastily : “ Your friend, R.” 

The alert eyes over her head watched the writ- 
ing of the name upon the envelope: “ Giles 01m- 
stead. Esq., Hotel Paoli.’’ 

“ Why, cousin Rizpah I Do you know him like 

that ? ” 

» Exactly like that,” she answered, smiling ; “ he 
was very good to me when I was his pupil. 

“ 0 ! ” exclaimed Bud, mystified as she skipped 
away with the letter. 


VIL 

FLO WEES AND FLOEENCE. 

“ Pater is not an early riser,” remarked Griffin 
the next morning, as he strolled forth with his 
friend; “I will send my flowers before we go.” 

Eizpah’s letter was in a small note book in Giles’ 
breast pocket; the flower she had brought him 
from the foot of the garden was pressed dry in 
that same old note book. As they crossed the 
Piazza — the open square found in all Italian 
cities — Giles paused in great amusement to ob- 
serve the market man squatting upon the stones 
surrounded by his heaps of queer merchandise: 
dried coffee grounds, old clothing, knives and 
forks, candle ends, a rusty iron bedstead, furniture 
of every description, second-hand food of all kinds. 

“Come on, boy; you will get used to these 
sights; I’m after flowers.” 

The city was glowing in the spring sunshine ; 

fields and gardens in the distance were a mass of 
( 73 ) 


74 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


radiant colors, the broad gray pavements were 
alive with flowers in fragrant piles. 

Of all tlie fairest cities of tbe earth. 

None is so fair as Florence/’ 

spouted Griffin, as flower-laden he turned to Giles 
and pushed a tiny bouquet into a button hole of 
his coat. 

“ These white ones are for Florence, but she will 
never know it. I make no distinction among 
them ; if I did Pater would send me beyond the 
Apennines.” 

The basket of flowers was sent to the Lung’ Arno, 
and the young men sauntered on to the Loggia 
de’ Langi, a favorite resort of Griffin’s when he was 
alone. 

‘‘ The people are something to watch,” he said. 

The Loggia consisted of a platform six steps 
above the square, enclosed with three open arches 
and three pillars; the groups of sculpture between 
the arches were placed there in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. 

“This bronze is Judith and Holofernes,” ex- 
plained Griffin, “ do you know who they were ? ” 

“ Yes,” said his companion, smiling at him with 
a sense of amusement, “ are you one of the people 
who will never ^ see ’ Florence ? ” 


FLOWERS AND FLORENCE, 


75 


“ I see enough : I’m taken with the works of 
nature; but it does awe me when I think these 
things were here when Europe was running over 
to discover America.” 

After a stroll in the Loggia Griffin proposed 
that they should seat themselves and watch the 
moving crowd that was rapidly filling the Piazza 
beneath. 

“ Hundreds of men stand here for hours, as if 
that were all they were made for, talking inces- 
santly in their pleasant Tuscan voices. I wonder 
if their lives are all talk; they make newspapers 
of themselves.” 

“ Those fellows with long cloaks lined with 
green, thrown over one shoulder, look like pictures 
themselves,” returned Giles. “ Among such a city 
full of pictures and statues I should think the in- 
habitants might think of them as the real Floren- 
tines and themselves as visitors.” 

“ The real ones speak,” said Griffin, “ that’s the 
only difference. ‘ Savonarola’s soul went out in 
fire ’ here in this piazza ; do you know his story ? 
Eizpah told me.” 

“ She tells you a great many things,” said Giles 
in a displeased, dry voice. 

“ Yes,” replied Griffin, ‘‘ she sees I would never 


76 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE, 


know if she didn’t, or somebody else. He was law- 
giver of Florence, you know ; he advocated a 
council of one thousand with Christ as the King, 
instead of a doge like that of Venice. His throne 
was the pulpit, during his reign, for it was a reign, 
love and sacrifice were the spirit of Florence ; 
unlawful possessions were restored, enemies for- 
gave each other, hymns instead of ballads were 
sung in the streets, the sacrament was given to 
the people every day, and over the cathedral 
pulpit and over the gate of the Palazzo Vec- 
chio was written : ‘Jesus Christ is the King of 
Florence.’ ” 

Giles hstened, hearing Eizpah’s Jow, impassion- 
ed tones in the words Griffin was speaking. 

“ His last words were : ‘ The Lord has suffered 
as much for me.’ It was ten o’clock on a May 
morning, such a morning as this perhaps, when 
the fields and gardens and hills were glorious 
with sunshine and spring fiowers.” 

“ Yes,” said Giles, with solemn assent. 

“And we are going to the Boboli Gardens. 
Life is a big thing after you begin to take it in 
earnest, Giles.” 

Giles slipped his hand into his breast-pocket 
and brought out the small note-book he had used 


FLOWERS AND FLORENCE, 


77 


that winter and summer in the stone school 
house ; placing the open letter in his companion’s 
hand, he said : “ Here is something to make one 
take life in earnest.” 

Griffin kept his eyes upon the words fully ten 
minutes. 

“That is like her; she wrote the last words 
some time after she wrote the others.” 

“ She will hold me to my promise.” 

“ Why shouldn’t she ? ” asked Griffin, fiercely ; 
“did you make it to break it ? ” 

“ I know now that I had a hope that she would 
not accept it ; another time that I have been a 
fooL^^ 

“ She will steer clear of you.” 

“There is no occasion ; she knows I will keep 
my word.”j 

“ It is something to have her for a ‘ friend.’ ” 

“ It is nothing to me ; I would rather never see 
her face again.” 

“It is a great deal to me. I wish that note 
were written to me instead of to you, old fellow. 

“ Do you mean that you desire the assurance of 
her friendship ? 

“ No, I can have that in fifteen minutes. She 
regards me as a naughty, big boy, who is worth 


78 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


loving into being good. Bud said you must tell 
her a story to-day, do you remember ? ’’ 

“ I suppose I must stay and brave it out,’^ he 
said, returning the letter to its safe keeping. 

“Oh no; I’ll run off with you — but our mothers 
are coming. We must show them Florence.” 


viir. 


BOBOLI GABDEKS. 

“ I FEEL very idle/^ remarked Eizpah in a pause 
of the rapid flow of talk, “it is so odd for me to 
choose what I may do next.” 

They had explored the Grotto, and exclaimed in 
various tones — only Eizpah never did exclaim — 
over the unfinished statues by Michael Angelo, 
and had sauntered singly and in twos and threes 
through the clipped avenue of bay and ilex, and 
then returned to the amphitheatre of seats raised 
one above another in front of the palace, and 
dropped down to rest and talk, and gaze down 
upon the city. Bud had kept beside Eizpah, Mr. 
Chevil had detained Giles to talk over the latest 
news from America, and Griffin had alternated 
between Florence and Emily; Mrs. Chevil and 
Bee had walked arm-in-arm like two school girls. 
Eizpah looked younger to-day than Griffin had 

imagined she could look; her cheeks were rounded 

( 79 ) 


80 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


and the color in her eyes made them almost pretty. 
Ugly or not, she was pleasant to look upon. 

“ I feel as if it were vacation all the time,” she 
added, meeting Mrs. Chevifs sympathetic glance. 
Mrs. Chevil felt rather idle herself. She missed 
her housekeeping. 

“ You have earned it, dear,’^ said Mrs. Chevil, in 
her gracious way, “ we are the idlers.” 

“ I would not mind it if I were getting on at 
all,” persisted the idler. 

“ Must you push every minute ? ” laughed Emi- 
ly; “you are a born, indefatigable Yankee. Do 
you want to be making money ? ” 

“ 1 want to be making — myself.” 

Florence’s mental comment was, that she did 
need finishing, and that she looked enough like an 
Oriental to revel in idleness. 

Eizpah’s eyes wandered over the city below; the 
“ smokeless city,’’ with its domes and spires in the 
vale and the Apennines to the right, extending 
to the city walls; in the midst rolled the Arno; 
the hills were covered with vineyards and olive 
plantations, dotted over with villas and gardens. 

“ Are you sorry you are here ? ” questioned Bud. 

“No,” smiled Eizpah. Her eyes became very 
warm when she smiled at Bud. A little sister 


BOBOLI GARDENS. 


81 


like Bud Chevil would fill her heart of desires full; 
no one guessed that her heart was full of desires. 

A quick ear behind her caught the smiling 
“ no,” the clear face fiushed and he left his sen- 
tence unfinished. Giles had been walking with 
Emily and talking to her about the workingmen 
of Florence. Griffin had been hovering over them 
all, watching them all and speaking oftenest to 
Mr. Chevil. 

With his easy manner he came around to 
Eizpah and asked her to look at the most beauti- 
ful picture in all picturesque Florence : the dome 
of the cathedral and the tower of the Palazzo 
Vecchio between a group of cypresses and the mas- 
sive brown walls of the palace. 

Yes,” said Eizpah, drawing a quick breath, 
‘‘everything is too beautiful; it fills me too full, 
I have to shut my eyes to rest my heart.” 

“ And you call yourself idle ? ” he said, reproach- 
fully; “don’t you think these things are making 
you ? ” 

“ They do not go deep enough.” 

“ That might be true of my six feet,” he returned 
with his careless laugh ; “ how deep are you ?” 

She was not displeased; she was never dis- 
pleased with Griffin. 

6 


82 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


“ Italian laborers work as hard and earn as little 
as any people in the world ; they don’t fret them- 
selves to death about it, either. See the poor 
fellow starting off for his day’s work, eating his 
breakfast as he goes, two cents’ worth of bread, a 
cent’s worth of a kind of coarse celery. Coarse 
bread and figs or chestnuts satisfy him at dinner 
or supper, with perhaps a quart of some water 
that he calls wine. Some of the poor fellows hire 
a double bed for five cents and share it with a 
comrade, and thus reduce their own lodgings to 
two cents and a half.” 

The earnest voice of Giles l^oke in upon Griffin’s 
nonsense. 

“ Oh, he’s daft about these fellows,” said Griffin, 
“ drags me all around with him and talks Latin or 
Italian or some sort of lingo they understand to 
them. He’ll give up America yet and settle down 
here in Florence ; he has set one man’s arm already 
and called twice upon the sick baby of another. 
That is the kind of pictures and sights he is after. 
It isn’t all vacation days to him.” 

Bud pushed herself in between her father and 
Mr. Olmstead. 

“Pater, I’d like to buy wood for the little 
children and old men and women we see by the 


BOBOLI GARDENS, 


83 


roadside picking up twigs and dead bits of grape- 
vine to burn.’' 

“Would you take their work away from them? 
The necessity brings them out into the sunshine 
and gives them employment.” 

“ Then I’d scatter it down thicker,” said Bud, 
rather staggered with this view of political econ- 
omy. 

“No, you wouldn’t,” cried GriflBn, catching at 
her hair. “You’d be like the bad boy that shook 
Goody Blake, and ‘ his teeth they chatter, chatter 
still.’ ” 

Bud laughed, for Goody Blake was one of her 
favorite poems. 

“ That doesn’t satisfy me about the old women,- 
though.” 

“Oh, Giles will take care of them when he lives 
in Florence,” promised Griffin, generously. 

“You and Mr. Giles belong to the blood-brother- 
hood,” said Bee in a tone of admiration. Bee 
admired “ devotion.” One of her longings was to 
find some one to be devoted to ; she was beginning 
to think it might be this new, strange Kizpah. 

“ What is that ? ” Griffin asked, who never pre- 
tended to know a thing. Florence believed that" 
he delighted in parading his ignorance ; but then 


84 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


she did not admire Griffin in everything; he was 
too “young.’’ 

Florence herself had never heard of blood- 
brotherhood, but she would have evaded and 
almost equivocated before she would have acknow- 
ledged ignorance about anything that her younger 
sister knew. 

“Yes, chicken, tell us,” said her father. 

“ It’s a rite among the natives in Africa, when 
two men — I don’t know about women — choose 
each other to be friends; a fetish man comes with 
lancets, a long pod, a pinch of salt and a banana 
leaf. He scrapes the staff of a spear and the stock 
of a rifle, and the fine shavings fall on the banana 
leaf, and then he adds the pinch of salt and a little 
dust from the pod. The arms of the two men are 
crossed — ” 

Griffin caught Giles by the arm and crossed his 
own upon it ; the two young men stood with 
serious faces and crossed left arms; they were all 
listening with grave interest. 

“ The fetish man makes an incision in each arm 
with one of the lancets, and then the blood begins 
to ooze out and some of this strange stuff is drop- 
ped into the wounds; then the arms are rubbed 
together — 


BOBOLI GARDENS. 


85 


“ So fashion,” said Griffin, rubbing his coat 
sleeve against the coat sleeve of his companion. 

“And the men are pledged to a life friendship,” 
ended Bee, with a rising tragical inflection. 

“And you are all witnesses this twentieth of May 
in the Boboli Gardens,” said Griffin. 

“ But you were blood brothers before,” said Bee. 

“We never had the ceremony before,^’ said Grif- 
fin, “ we had to wait for this fetish man.” 

“You are bound now,” continued Bud, “you 
can’t ever quarrel — not even if — ” 

“ What ? ” asked Griffin, as the child hesitated. 

‘ Speak it out, Kosebud.” 

“Not even if you both wish to marry the same 
lady.” 

“We never could, said Griffin, with the utmost 
gravity; “she would be sure to take old Giles.’’ 

Bud looked from one to the other with intent 
eyes, as if she were weighing the merits of each ; 
Mr. Olmstead had become a great favorite with 
her. 

After a few moments Mr. Chevil took Giles by 
the arm and wandered off with him, to talk over 
the condition of Italian working men ; Griffin 
threw himself down beside Kizpah and began to 
play with her flowers. 


86 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


“My friend Giles is a typical American boy; 
rd like to tell you what he did one time. His 
father died when he was fifteen and left him 
on a mortgaged farm ; with the advice of neigh- 
bors and the help of agricultural papers he took 
the farm in hand ; he had charge of cattle, horses, 
fields and all; he had a tetaih milk business be- 
side, and sold the farm produce himself; beside 
that he painted the house twice over one summer 
and made new fences. One winter he taught a 
country school two miles off and worked in the 
woods on Saturday, beside writing letters and 
poems and all sorts of things for the country paper 
and digging away at deep books by himself. The 
mortgage was thirteen hundred; before he was 
nineteen that was paid off, the farm was in 
good condition, and he had some money in the 
bank.’^ 

“ Splendid ! ’’ cried Emily. “ There’s a hero for 
you.” 

“ Glorious ! ” exclaimed Bee. “ He looks as if he 
could do it.” 

“ He has any amount of energy and persever- 
ance,’^ said Rizpah, in her quiet voice. 

It was appreciative, however. 

“ When I was a toddler I used to go over the 


BOBOLI GARDENS, 


87 


farm holding to the big boj^s finger. My mother 
used to go there summers.” 

Eizpah picked a red flower into pieces and let 
the bright bits fall through her fingers over her 
white dress; she was still thinking that her days 
were too idle. Griffin gathered the scattered bits 
and tossed them away, vexed with one listener 
that she cared no more for such a brave boyhood. 

“Somebody says,” remarked Florence, “that 
life is made up of conversation; Fm certain ours is.” 

“ That is what makes me unsatisfied,” said Kiz- 
pah, “ there’s so little in it.” 

“ Do you want us to talk like books ? ” inquired 
Emily. 

“ I would like what we like best in books to be 
in our conversation,” answering the words rather 
than the sarcasm of the tone. 

“ I wonder what we do like in books ? ” said Mrs. 
Chevil thoughtfully, to whom books were a trifling 
part of life. 

Florence loved to sit near her mother that she 
could touch her dress or her hand ; this mother and 
daughter were like school girl lovers. 

“People!” said Griffin briskly. “I wouldn’t 
give a fig for a book that isn’t full of live human 
beings; real naughty as well as real good ones. 


88 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


I’m real naughty myself,” with a delightful air of 
confession. 

“We can have people in conversation,” said Eiz- 
pah. 

“ Gossip,” ventured Mrs. Chevil. 

“ I was thinking this morning about the angels 
talking about us, talking us over: they minister to 
us, we know, and they must love us because of the 
ministry; I should think they would love to talk 
us over to each other — as we do,” said Kizpah. 

“ But they can’t understand us,” said GriflSn. 

“ They understand sufficiently to have real rejoic- 
ing when we repent,” replied Rizpah. 

“ Perhaps they criticise us as we do characters in 
a book,” said Bee, rather frightened at speaking so 
familiarly of the angels. 

“ One time one angel went forth and another 
angel went out to meet him, and said: ‘ Run, speak 
to this young man,’ ” said Rizpah, as if speaking 
to herself. 

Griffin’s eyes were alight. 

“ I wish I were the young man.” 

“ Do you want an angel to speak to you ? ” queried 
Bud. 

“ An angel or somebody.” 

“ What about ? ” moving closer to him. 


BOBOLI GABDEJSrS. 


“ Bud, dear,’’ rebuked her mother, gently. 

“ 0, 1 want to talk about it; it’s no secret,” he said 
gloomily. You know I said Giles came here to 
read medicine with me; that was his fun, and he 
actually did open my Anatomy and pretend to 
review me: he really came at my invitation for 
a vacation; my mother wanted him to come. She 
wants him to travel a year or two with me. That’s 
all up about the medicine, unless I choose; my fath- 
er left a letter, written after he was too weak to 
talk much, and said he regretted having made my 
mother promise to urge me on to the study of medi- 
cine; he was an enthusiast, and if I don’t study, 
there’s money to be left to the profession in some 
way. Snowdon understands. T don’t care a fig for 
the money, about not having it — but I do care a 
cluster or too about doing something with my 
heart in it. Every fellow can’t choose; most have 
their means of earning a living thrust upon them 
by hard necessity; but my father had money and 
his father had before him, and I’m the luckless heir, 
and the truth is, I’m tired of being a good-for-noth- 
ing.” 

“Since when?” inquired Florence, mockingly. 

“ Since you came,” he said, looking steadily at 
Eizpah. “ The truth is you all help me,” giving a 


90 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


glance into each bright, interested face. ‘‘ Fm a 
different fellow, somehow, since you all have been 
so kind to me.” 

“ Yes, you’ve given up slang,” said Florence, 
encouragingly. 

“ Everybody influences me ; Fm made so. Old 
Giles has more than anybody. He ran to speak to 
this young man. He taught me to be manly 
when I was a little fellow.” 

“ Now this conversation is like a book,” said 
Bee, approvingly. 

“ Autobiography,” suggested Emily ; ‘‘ what else 
do you like in books, Eizpah ? ” 

“ I like a book that brings something out of 
me,” replied Eizpah in her low tone. Her tones 
were so peculiar, clear and distinct, that you for- 
got how low they were. 

People do that for me,” said Griffin. 

“I know what I want in books; something I 
have not found ; it may be that I do not know how 
to find it,” Eizpah went on, with unusual open- 
ness. 

“ The truth ? ” asked Emily, feeling sure that 
broad word covered all seeking. 

“That is too general a term; I want to know 
the truth about myself,” crimsoning with the re- 


I 


BOBOLI GARDENS. 


91 


flection of how egotistical she must appear to them. 
“ Then it must be a book about you^^ said Bud. 
“I like places,” said Florence. ‘‘After our 
ascent of Bellosguardo how much better I under- 
stood: 

‘ From Tuscan Bellosguardo, 

Where Galileo stood at nights to take ^ 

The vision of the stars, we have found it hard 
Gazing upon the earth and heavens, to make 
A choice of beauty.^ 

“ It’s hard now,” said Bud, gazing down into the 
city, and then, shading her eyes with her hand, to 
lift them up to the heavens. 

“ And Aurora Leigh found a house at Florence 
on the hill of Bellosguardo,” said Emily. “ I 
believe I would come to Florence just to read that 
book in the Italy Mrs. Browning loved so. 

‘ From the outer wall 
Of the garden, dropped the mystic floating gray 
Of olive trees (with interruptions green 
From maize and vine) until ^twas caught and tom 
On that black abrupt line of cypresses 
'Which signed the way to Florence. Beautiful 
The city lay along the ample vale. 

Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street ; 

The river trailing like a silver cord 
Through all, and curling loosely both before 
And after, over the whole stretch of land. 

Sown whitely up and down its opposite slopes 
With farms and villas.^ 


92 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


Emily’s enthusiasm was reflected in every face. 

“ I don’t see what Giles had to go off for,” said 
GrifSn, discontentedly, “ he would like this.” 

“Take him there,” said Eizpah. 

“Will you go, too ?” he asked, eagerly. 

“Of course, we’ll all go,” accepted Bud. “I told 
him I would show him my Bellosguardo.” 

Emily drew a volume from her pocket. 

“ I brought a book in case the conversation be- 
came too stupid ; but T wont go off by myself ; I 
will read to you what our own Hawthorne writes 
about the scenery of the hills behind Bellos- 
guardo.” Griffin listened in happy silence. 

Mr. Che^dl and his companion drew near before 
the reading ended. 

“ ‘ It seems as if all Italy lay under our eyes in 
this one picture. For there is the broad, sunny 
smile of God, which wa fancy to be spread over this 
favored land more abundantly than on other 
regions, and beneath it glows a most rich and 
varied fertility. The trim vineyards are there, 
and the fig trees, and the mulberries, and the 
smoky-hued tracts of the olive orchards; there 
too are fields of every kind of grain, among which 
waves the Indian corn. White villas, gray 
convents, church spires, villages, towns, each 


BOBOLI GARDENS. 


93 


with its battlem exited walls and towered gateway, 
are scattered upon this spacious map; a river 
gleams across it, and the lakes open their blue 
eyes in its face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals 
should forget that better land, when they behold 
the earth so beautiful/ 

No one spoke. Emily slipped the book back to 
her pocket and sprang up. In twos and threes 
they started out for a stroll; Bud took Eizpah's 
hand and Griffin walked the other side ; Florence 
was interested in the conversation between her 
father and Mr. Olmstead. 

Florence Chevil took her life on its surface ; it 
was delightful and she was delighted; she would 
be content to live for a year of Mays in this 
Florence sunshine and never once think that she 
was “ idle; ” and she was not; her thoughts or her 
hands were ever busy. To the eyes watching her 
she was as beautiful as the Florence landscape. 

No one beside Griffin Vanderveer ruffied her 
self-complacency; he had told her that she w’as too 
beautiful not to be more good. “ Such a girl as 
you are should do the work of an angel; and not 
think of yourself any more than an angel does.” 

Her reply, a laugh, provokingly free from embar- 
rassment, had spurred him on to the frank rude- 


04 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


ness of: You will never be worth anything 

until you lose your beauty.” 

She was silent, because she was touched ; flatter- 
ed, angry, hurt; tears of mingled feeling stood in 
her eyes, and Griffin heartlessly likened them to 
blue flowers swimming in dew. He had an idea 
that she knew she looked pretty with tears in her 
eyes. He had written to his mother that he quar- 
relled with the Chevils as if they were his sisters. 

“ My mother is coming to me,” Rizpah heard 
Giles say to Florence, “that was the plan when I 
left home — she is coming with friends. I was to 
view the land first.” 

“ Is she very old ? ” Bud raised her voice to ask. 

“ Mothers always seem old to us,’^ he replied. 

“Like you, dear old woman,” Florence turned 
to throw back at her mother, who was walking 
hand-in-hand with Bee. 

Florence’s mental picture of Giles’ mother was: 
“ a poky old woman who wears loud colors and 
eats with her knife :” her mother imagined a placid 
old lady in wide bordered caps, continually knit- 
ting and always fretting for fear her son would 
wander off and get hurt; Rizpah had seen her 
photograph, but that was years ago ; she was not 
glad that she was coming; her presence, in some 


BOBOLI GARDEN'S, 


95 


way, might be a demand upon her. But for any 
demand Giles Olmstead made upon her, that word 
“ friend ” might have been unwritten ; he was sim- 
ply courteous to her; if there were any advance to 
be made toward friendliness, plainly, it was not to 
be made by himself. Her face was the only grave 
one in the party. 

“Mr. Giles,” said Bud, “you haven’t told your 
story. It's your turn to-day.” 

“ I had forgotten; perhaps something will come 
to me.” 

At the next resting place Bee proposed the 
story. The story was a part of every excursion. 

“ Once upon a time,” Giles begun, in his story- 
telling manner, “there was a heathen man in 
Japan who had a heathen family; they all wor- 
shiped the god Kannin Daimiyo-jin-san. 

“ The point of my story is the interpretation of 
this god’s name. 

“ Generation by generation the heads of this house 
had prospered; so much so that friends and stran- 
gers were moved to inquire into the secret. On 
^the second day of the New Year the master assem- 
bled his family to worship Kannin Daimiyo-jin-san 
and to open the Kannin-bako. 

“ This Kannin-bako was a box into which during 


96 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


the year they had dropped their contributions ; it 
was the annual offering to the god. 

“ Upon one occasion strangers and friends pre- 
sented themselves to inquire into the secret of this 
worshiper’s prosperity. 

“ The master of the house thus explained the mat- 
ter: ‘From the earliest ages my family has 
believed in Kannin Daimiyo-jin-san and worshiped 
him and made offerings to him. In his box we 
drop our first-fruits and other percentages. We 
arrange our percentages in this way : if I would buy 
a garment that cost fifty dollars, by self-restraint 
and economy I manage to get along with one that 
costs something less and drop the difference into 
Kannin-bako; if I would give a grand feast to 
my friends, I exercise self-restraint and economy 
and give a percentage of it to Kannin-bako; 
if I determine to build a house, or take an 
expensive journey, or buy books with hand- 
some bindings, or give elegant presents to my 
friends, I remember Kannin-bako. In propor- 
tion to my annual outlays the offering is large 
or small. And what I find in Kannin-bako I 
distribute among those who have not so much 
as I have.’ 

“ Now the word Kannin Daimiyo-jin-san being 


BOBOLl GARDENS, 


97 


interpreted, is The Great, Bright God of Self- 
Kestraint.” 

“ What is the name of the box ? ” questioned Bud, 
whose eyes had not left the story-teller’s face. 

“ You can guess that.” 

Then I guess Self-Restraint Box,” she answer- 
ed promptly. 

Florence’s cheeks had deepened to crimson : Eiz- 
pah was digging into a tuft of grass with the point 
of her parasol. 

“ I think iBs horrid to have to think about being 
good all the time,” Emily burst out; “ where do the 
good times come in ? ” 

And then she joined in the laugh against her- 
self; and explained that she meant gay times and 
not good times. 

“Young men, you are coming to dine with us,” 
invited Pater, springing to his feet like a boy. 
“ And Mr. Olmstead shall not say another disagree- 
able thing to-day to you. Budget.” 

“ Then he will have vent when he gets me alone,” 
said Griffin, “for he glories in being disagreeable.’ 

“ What makes you ? ” asked Bud, taking Griffin’s 
remark literally and fixing her eyes on Giles' face. 

“ I am human,” said Giles, with the utmost seri- 
ousness. “ Mr. Chevil, if you will kindly excuse 
7 


98 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


me I will push my tramp further on and write my 
name to-day as old Sam Johnson once signed his; 
Impransus.^' 

‘‘Dinnerless,” translated Emily. 

“ 0, GriflSn, must you be Impransus, too ? ’’ cried 
Bee. “ I have some American letters to read to you.^’ 

“ If we may come this evening — ” began Griffin. 

“ I must work to-night,” said Giles, abruptly. 

“Must you stay with him?” inquired Bud of 
Griffin. 

“ Since that ceremony, yes: Bee, may I have the 
letters in the morning ? ” 

“ Early, yes ; for we may go somewhere.” 

“ Rizpah,” said Griffin, “ what do you do to- 
morrow ? ” 

“ What I am ^oW,” said Eizpah, smiling at the 
silent interpretation of her words. 

She walked on beside Emily, thinking and put- 
ting into words a desire that had only of late been 
born in her heart; she seemed to herself to have 
grown since she was left without Aunt Eizpah. 

“ I know I want to take his will on earth for me 
as implicitly, as cheerfully, as wholly^ as I know I 
shall when I move from place to place, from work 
to work, under his nearer direction; nearer to me; 
not nearer to him.” 


IX. 


GILES’ MOTHER. 

Florence confessed to the girls the picture she 
had drawn of Giles Olmstead's mother; Emily 
acknowledged that she had been provoked at the 
idea of an old woman coming and spoiling their 
good times, and their mother congratulated them 
and herself after the first call at the Hotel Paoli, 
where the two mothers were at home with their 
sons. 

Griffin’s mother was a lively little lady, with the 
blackest of hair and blackest of eyes, with color in 
her cheeks like a girl; her words poured forth in a 
continual stream of light talk; she travelled that 
she might have something to talk about, she read 
that she might have something to talk about, she 
slept that she might awake to talk ; she lived that 
she might talk. 

It was well that Giles’ mother was born a listen- 
er. 


( 99 ) 


100 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


When Giles Olmstead said ; ‘‘ My mother, Miss 
Chevil,” Florence was afraid that she did not con- 
ceal her bewilderment; a poky old woman in 
loud colors and eating with her knife ! 

The lady standing beside her tall son, with her 
head reaching to his shoulder, was certainly not 
fifty years old; the yellow hair thickly besprinkled 
with white was parted over a smooth low forehead, 
waving at the temples with natural curliness; the 
eyes were as large as Bud’s, as blue as her son’s, as 
wise and innocent as a child’s, with a touch of 
humor when she smiled; cheek, brow and lip, were 
tinted with the freshness of health ; the cheeks 
were round, and dimpled when she spoke or 
smiled, the lips parted over firm white teeth, the 
lines of the mouth expressed many things and 
might express many more as one knew her 
better; her dress, of some gray material, seemed 
a part of herself; Florence could not describe it 
afterward. 

“My step-mother, perhaps I should tell you, 
Miss Florence; she took me when I was seven 
years old, and if an oivn mother is a better thing 
I do not want one.’’ 

It was two days afterward that Eizpah saw her. 

“ If you were not his mother I would love you,” 


GILES ^ MOTHER. 


101 


Bhe thought. “ I would claim you, and have you, 
for you were made to help me.’’ 

“You are Eizpah,” said Giles’ mother, holding 
her hand. “ I met an old friend of yours last sum- 
mer, Mr. Snowdon; and he told me of you and 
your aunt. No one can be alone with such a friend 
as Horace Snowdon; I knew him when I was a 
girl; his heart is as warm as a mother’s.” 

Eizpah colored and was shy, turning away with 
a shame in her face that she hardly understood ; if 
his mother knew all about her, and knew, too, that 
her son was not ashamed to choose her to be his 
wife, would she have spoken so and looked at her 
with such kindliness ? Their second meeting was 
in the cool, frescoed, sweet-scented halls of the 
Spezeria of S. Maria Novella; Griffin was escorting 
the mother of his friend about, as Giles had gone 
on an excursion to Galileo’s Tower with Mr. Chevil. 

“Mrs. Olmstead wishes to go to the Foundling 
Hospital to see the babies taken care of by the 
goats,” said Griffin ; “ the goats are the only moth- 
ers they have, and come when the babies cry as 
other mothers do. I believe she will like that 
better than these frescoes.” 

In the chapel they lingered long before the fres- 
coes: the Washing of the Feet, the Last Supper, 


102 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


Our Saviour bearing his Cross, the Scourging, the 
Mocking, the Crucifixion, and the Deposition from 
the Cross. 

Bud’s eyes were very mournful. 

“ It makes me sad,” she said to her mother, “ I 
wish it wasn’t all true.” 

“ 0 Bud, don’t say that ! ” exclaimed Eizpah, 

what would become of us if it were not ? 

As they left the chapel Griffin proposed a walk 
in the Cascine, the part of Florence where the 
meadows alternated with groves of ilex and pine, 
cut through and encircled with drives and walks. 

They had taken in the winter sunshine many 
drives there along the Arno, luxuriating in the 
views of the town and the country towards Bellos- 
guardo. The favorite resting-place was the Piazza 
facing the Arno ; to-day the girls found a familiar 
face here and there to bow to, and a friend to 
share their flowers with or to have a few minutes’ 
chat. 

“ Are you happy here in Florence, dear ? ” 

Mrs. Olmstead had come to her ; Eizpah flushed 
painfully, before she could speak. “ I do not know 
myself ; I enjoy everything if that is being happy.” 

“Your friends are very delightful.” 

“ Indeed they are,” said Eizpah warmly ; “they 


GILES' MOTHER. 


103 


think of me in everything. I am more at home 
with them every day.” 

‘‘ Yonr eyes are too grave for happy eyes.” 

“ I have been grave all my life ; my life made 
me so. If I felt satisfied I would be happier.” 

“ Would you love to tell me about it ? ” 

Eizpah met the kindness of the blue eyes and 
smiled. “ I do not feel sure about myself — I feel 
idle — my life has been so busy ; there was always 
something to do next at home — and now in our 
busy idleness we choose all day long what we like 
best, without any reference to what ought to be 
done.” 

“ I understand that ; I felt so at first. Your life 
and mine have been very busy, even with hard 
work and care ; we have not learned how to take 
a vacation ; the old habit of work and care is 
upon us ; we are bound by it now that we are freed 
from the necessity of it. But suppose we think of 
those old times as past ; that was our work then ; 
now we have something new to do. Shall we 
quarrel with the present because it is not as hard 
as the past ? Shall we not take the ease that is 
given to us as certainly as the work and the 
care were given ? Once, after the disciples had 
been working hard, their Master said to them : 


104 : 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


‘ Come ye — and rest awhile.^ Haven’t you and I 
a perfect place to rest in ? ” 

Kizpah’s eyes had grown dark and luminous. 

“We will rest and learn and be ready for the 
something next there is to do.” 

Before Kizpah could utter the words upon her 
lips Griffin was at her side with a proposal from 
Florence that they should walk down one of the 
avenues. 

But she did not care to speak : she had found the 
helper she had been looking for, she was content 
to be in Florence with her. It was on her lips to 
ask: “ May I come to you every day ? ” but the flash 
of remembrance hindered; she could not seek his 
mother without appearing to seek him. 

“ 0, Eizpah, do you remember the rest of Kan- 
nin — the name of the Great, Bright God of Self-Ee- 
straint?” inquired Florence. 

“No: Kannin — Daimigo — 

“ The box was Kannin-bako,’^ remembered Bee. 
“ I ve written it on one of my boxes. 

“ Don't you know, Mrs. Olmstead ? Mr. Giles 
told us,” said Bud. 

“ No, T never heard of it.” 

Bud came to her side and related the story as they 
walked together down the avenue of pine and ilex. 


GILES^ MOTHER. 


105 


“ I’d like to know how much he gave,” she said 
in conclusion. 

“A tenth,” suggested her mother; “everybody 
should give that.” 

“ That isn’t much,” declared Bud. 

Mrs. Olmstead’s voice came in questioningly : 
“ Were not the tithes given in recognition of the 
fact' that all belonged to the Giver? 

“ .^ ” exclaimed Florence incredulously. “Is 

not something our own to keep ? ” 

“ When the priest was consecrated, do you re- 
member what was done ? ” 

No one remembered. 

“The blood of the ram was put on the right ear, 
the thumb of the right hand, and the great tOe of 
the right foot, to indicate that his whole self belong- 
ed to the Lord. He was to hear for him, his handi- 
work was to be for him, and wherever he went his 
feet were to go in the service of the Lord.” 

“ But he was a priest ! ” said Florence, in a tone 
of rebellion. 

“He who loved us, and washed us from our sins 
in his own blood hath made us kings and jpriests 
unto God.” 

Eizpah’s eyes were shining ; “ I have wondered 
about that; I thought it must mean something to 


106 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE, 


the Jews — the priesthood was so rauch to them, 
but that it could mean nothing to me.’^ 

“ Does it mean anything now? ” asked Florence, 
stepping back to walk beside her. 

“ Yes,” said Eizpah in her low voice. 

“ Tell me,” said Bud. 

She did not speak immediately; if they did not 
care how could she tell them ? 

‘‘It means that his own blood has touched me, 
as the blood of the ram touched the priest ; it has 
washed me, as that could not ; that blood was a 
sign of this blood — I belong to him because of his 
blood ; that has bought me ; my ear, my foot, my 
hand are his.” 

She spoke with pauses that were scarcely abrupt, 
because when she was moved, they had learned to 
expect them. 

“ If that is true it ought to make a difference,” 
said Emily, in her decided way. “ Now I know, 
Cousin Eizpah, why you are different from us. 
You are too, Mrs. Olmstead.” Emily was behind 
them, with Bee. 

The slightest possible frown of disapproval had 
worked itself between Mrs. Chevil’s eyebrows: 
she would not like her girls to become ascetics; but 
where had she ever seen a happier face than Mrs. 


VILES^ MOTHER. 


107 


Olmstead’s? Who enjoyed Florence more enthusi- 
astically than she did ? 

“ I would love to be as frank and as bright and 
as sweet as all of you are, dear,” was the quick reply. 

“But that isn’t all; what did you say the priest 
was ? ” 

“ Consecrated?” 

“Yes, that’s the thing: we may be very bright 
and lovely and not be that, mayn’t we ? ” 

“ Yes,” the frank voice was forced to admit. 

“ I think I’ll read about those priests,” said Emily. 

“ My dear/’ remonstrated her mother, “ don’t ap- 
pear quite so ignorant; you read the Bible.” 

“ Not that way,” in her incisive tone. “ That 
makes it mean something.” 

“ My girls are on the alert for anything new,” 
half-apologized their mother. 

“ That’s the good of being girls,” said Bee. 

“ I will tell you the good of being one girl,” said 
Mrs. Olmstead, as Eizpah stepped back that Emily 
might press nearer. “ Sarah Hosmer was a poor 
American girl; she supported a student in the 
Nestorian Seminary who became a preacher. Five 
times she gave fifty dollars, earning the money 
herself in a factory, and sent out five native pastors 
consecrated to Christian work. After she was 


108 


J^IZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


sixty, the fire burned still in her heart, and she 
longed to give Nestoria one more Christian work- 
er ; she lived in an attic and took in sewing until 
she had earned enough to do it. In this way this 
poor factory girl did the work of six missionaries.” 

“ I wish I were a poor factory girl,” Emily burst 
out; “perhaps I’d do something in the world,” 

Griffin proposed that she should be sent back to 
America for that very purpose; but she would not 
smile at any nonsense. 


X. 


LETTEES. 

Eizpah sat in her room reading a letter ; it had 
come to her enclosed in a brief business-like 
epistle from Mr. Snowdon. At the close he wrote : 
“ Your aunt gave me this letter for you at our 
last interview; to write it had been the work of 
many months; it was to be given you within a 
year of her death. I sincerely trust it may be the 
bearer of good news.” 

How Eizpah had pored over each precious 
line ! Aunt Eizpah was alive and speaking to 
her; she was sitting at the bedside with her head 
beside hers on the pillow holding the thin, full- 
veined hand in hers and rubbing it softly as she 
listened to the weak voice. 

“ Eizpah, precious child : I must say it in a few 
words because it is so hard for me to write. One 
summer day a young woman came to my door 

asking for a drink of buttermilk; she had a dark, 

, ( 109 ) 


110 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


thin face and wild, sorrow-stricken eyes ; she could 
scarcely stand for very feebleness, and coughed 
with a cough that shook her from head to foot. 
I took her in and offered food, but she would take 
nothing but the buttermilk. She came for the 
buttermilk every day for a week; every day she 
grew weaker and coughed harder. She told me 
that she belonged to a gipsy camp about a quarter 
of a mile up the road in the woods — where you 
have found so many pretty things to paint — that 
she was English, and on her father’s side, belonged 
to a good family; that she and her mother had 
come away and left her father s family because 
they were not kind to her after her father died; 
her mother was dead, and she lived with her 
husband and little baby among these wild people, 
going from place to place ; that they had come here 
from the South, and in the cold weather would go 
South again; she did not remember having slept 
beneath a roof since she was a little girl ; her hus- 
band was not kind to her and did not love her 
poor little baby. I gave her some flannel to make 
a dress for the baby. She told me about her 
English home ; it was on a farm : she was proud of 
her English blood, and said two generations of it 
was in her veins and she wanted her baby to be an 


LETTERS, 


111 


English girl. The last time I saw her she kissed 
my hand and said : ‘ Lady, you have a kind 

heart !’ That day one of the neighbors came in 
and said the gipsies were preparing to move. 
That night the sudden cry on my door step took 
me in alarm to the door, and there I found the 
little baby that I have cherished with a heart 
more ‘ kind ’ towards her every day that she has 
blessed me with such unselfish love and devoted 
care. 

“ That is all, dear. You are God’s and mine. 
The fiannel I gave the poor mother was wrapped 
around the little baby I took in that night. 

“All I have is yours. It is my will that you 
should have all except the small sum bequeathed 
to Eansom Chevil in memory of kindness shown to 
me. It is my will that you should use it as you 
think best ; I offer no suggestions. May you find 
God’s will in everything, is the dying prayer of 
your 

“ Most loving and grateful 

“Aunt Kizpah.” 

Rizpah covered her face and wept ; she wept for 
pity for her young mother and she wept for long- 
ing for Aunt Eizpah. 

Jubilant voices were calling her, but she made 


112 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


no response ; hurried steps were at the door, and 
Emily’s dark head appeared. 

“ 0 Eizpah, you haven’t had bad news ! ” 

“ No ; good news, — a letter from Aunt Eizpah.” 

Emily regarded her with dazed eyes. 

“Mr. Snowdon sent it; it tells me about — my 
mother.” 

“ Is she alive ? ’’ 

“ 0 no ; not that. But who she was.” 

The question upon Emily’s lip was unasked. 

“ But you can go with us; we shall all be disap- 
pointed.” 

“ Not this time; I couldn’t. I want to stay all 
day alone ; tell your mother, please.” 

Emily stood undecided; out in the air and sun- 
shine would be better for a heartache than to be 
shut up alone to brood, she thought, as she felt 
the trouble in Eizpah ’s eyes. 

“ I couldnt go,” said Eizpah, “ I could not talk.” 

“ Then you shall not,” giving her a quick kiss, 
“ and nobody shall ask you any questions. Pater 
has had a letter that disturbs him, too. And 
mamma looks quite perplexed.” 

But later in the day, while she lay alone on her 
white bed, not knowing whether she were sorrowful 
or glad to hear Aunt Eizpah speak again, some 


LETTERS. 


113 


one came with a soft tread and sat down beside 
her. 

The four light-hearted girls who had always 
had father and mother, were away among the 
vineyards, at the foot of Galileo’s Tower ; she 
imagined them all among the grasses. Bud and 
Emily were finding ivy and vervain, the Madon- 
na’s herb and the white stars of Bethlehem to 
bring home to her; Florence watched the pigeons 
and talked to Griffin, and Bee watched a young 
girl as she sat singing and plaiting yellow straw; 
their mother dreamed over a story book and chat- 
ted with Mrs. Vanderveer, while Mr. Chevil and 
Giles paced up and down in eager, low conversa- 
tion. 

The girl upon the white bed was weary in her 
loneliness ; had pictured the path up the hill and 
the shining of the yellow Arno, the gleam of the 
city beneath, and the wild flowers all about; the 
talk would be merry and restful, GriflSn’s bright 
nonsense and good sense would flash out between 
times, and Mr. Olmstead — would he miss her and 
care that she was not there ? 

She did not open her eyes at the sound of the 
soft tread, nor lift her hand to brush away the 
tears that had slowly swelled beneath her shut 

r8 


114 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


eyelids ; she felt that the soft rustle signified a 
presence that she had longed for and had not dared 
hope for ; if Emily had said that she was troubled, 
would not her new friend come to her ? In some 
subtle, mysterious fashion, she felt drawn into the 
heart of Giles Olmstead’s mother; the month of 
daily companionship had done for them both the 
work of years of less intimacy. They had not had 
to learn each other. 

Her hand was taken and lield before either 
spoke. No one beside Aunt Eizpah had ever 
owned her like this. 

“ I almost knew you would come,’^ opening her 
eyes with a shining through the tears. 

“ Then you will not send me away ? ” 

‘‘ I would never send you away,” with strong 
emphasis. 

The letter was beside her on the pillow; she laid 
it open in Mrs. Olmstead’s hand, closing her eyes 
again. 

It seemed a long time before Mrs. Olmstead 
spoke ; would she despise the alien child, would she 
never touch her cheek with her sweet lips again ? 

But the lips were touching her cheek, and Eiz- 
pah was sobbing in her arms: “Oh, Mrs. Olm- 
stead, I do want to be owned.” 


LETTERS. 


115 


‘‘ I think you have had a very perfect owner- 
ship,” said the voice through tears. 

“ But 1 shall never find any one my mother 
belonged to. Am I wrong to be so glad, so very 
glad — that her father was of a ‘ good ’ family ? 
Perhaps as good as these Chevils ; honorable, and 
learned and independent — and not like those other 
people. Perhaps I am like him — and not like 
them; perhaps there^s something in me not un- 
lovely and utterly to be ashamed of.” 

“ My dear,” with caressing rebuke. 

“ Do you see something good in me ? ” with 
pathetic eagerness, lifting her head, that the some- 
thing good might be seen in her face. 

“ I see so much in you, that I am drawn to you 
as I never was to any girl before, and I have 
taught girls for many years.” 

Kizpah’s head was dropped in mute surprise. 

“Do not expect to understand it.” 

“ I wasn’t born so,” said Kizpah, with shame of 
face. 

“ Then God has made you so ; for that is what 
you are now — to me. And not to me alone. Mr. 
Chevil admires you, the girls love you, and Mrs. 
Vanderveer thinks more of you every day; you 
are an inspiration and a blessing to Griffin — he 


116 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


told me that no one had ever said to him what 
you have said; you have shown him possibilities 
in himself, you have told him how to do what 
others have told him to do without telling him 
how.” 

“I did not know it; I did not try,” said 
Eizpah, simply. 

“ It is most of all by being yourself; your life is 
strong and straight ; do not think any more about 
yourself; be thankful for what you are, for what 
you have been made, and go on learning and 
doing.” 

“ You are very comforting,” said Eizpah. “ I 
was going home to hide away. My mother’s 
people are not — like you.” 

“ If you were the sister of these girls would you 
go home and hide away ? ” 

“0 no; indeed.” 

“ If you were GrilSn’s sister.” 

“ I would be proud to be that.” 

She did not say : “ If you were Giles’ sister.” 

Was it because she would not have her call her 
‘‘ mother ? ” 

Shall I tell you what impresses me most about 
you ? It is what has influenced and inspired 
GriflSn; it is your silent, strong, spoken and un- 


LETTERS. 


117 


spoken persistence in doing the will of God. There 
is a promise for you about that; a promise that 
belongs to you, spoken by the Lord himself.’’ 

Eizpah’s eyes were dark and luminous as 
always when she was much moved. 

The solemn, glad voice repeated: “ ‘ Whosoever 
shall do the will of God, the same is . . . my 

sister.’ ” 

Eizpah’s head dropped upon her shoulder and 
was not lifted for some time. 

“ And now do you know what I would like to 
do?” 

The cheer and brightness of the tone, as if there 
were so many happy things to do, awakened Eiz- 
pah to the consciousness that there was something 
she would like to do. 

“ At the Porta Eomana we can take a carriage 
for the Tower; while you dress I’ll send out 
for a carriage to take us there — and we shall have 
our day with them, after all. I told Emily in con- 
fidence not to be surprised if we were there in 
time for lunch.” 

Instantly the girl was upon her feet ; there were 
so many things that might be in her desolate life, 
after all. 

“Mr. 01m stead had something to read about 


118 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


Milton’s visit to Galileo ; I did want to go ; but I 
seemed to think that 1 had to stay home and be 
miserable.” 

“ Poor little girl,” said the bright little lady with 
a happy laugh, “ I wouldn’t be miserable if 1 were 
you — you don’t begin to know what is laid up for 
you in your next quarter century ; I have almost 
lived my two quarters and am looking forward to 
my third. At my age, 1 believe I look forward like 
a girl. And why should I not ? Why should not 
my next score of years hold as much to me as to 
you who stand beside me, looking out upon life: 
you may stand with reluctant feet, but my feet are 
sure because I stand upon the foundation of the 
experience that works hope. I know how good 
the way is better than you do. You have the 
untried things to look forward to. I have the 
tried. The years between fifty and seventy must 
be full of very difierent experience from the years 
between twenty-five and forty-five ; difierent, less 
exciting, but not therefore less enthusiastic. 
Enthusiasm dies only in hopeless hearts. I seldom 
meet an enthusiastic middle-aged woman ; they 
may be mildly content, but they have no future ; 
they have had their future. But I haven’t had all 
of mine. In my way mine is as much to me as 


LETTERS. 


119 


yours is to you ; my blessedness lies in work and 
in learning new things to do and new things 
about Him who is always new ; for the work I 
am more prepared than you, for the learning more 
apt, perhaps, through the years I have had ; so 
why should not the w^oman look forward as hope- 
fully, as expectantly of good as the girl who stands 
eager and alert beside her ? ” 

“Because,” answered Kizpah, slowly, “you 
have no romance, — if that is the name of it — and 
Blossom has — to look forward to.” 

“ No ; I have had mine, and may you all have 
as good; but that is only a part of life, an episode 
in life’s long story. I want you to have something 
else — and have that, too ; that is too good to be 
left out.” 

“ It isn^t always good,” said Eizpah, doubtfully. 
“ Aunt Eizpah’s was not good.^^ 

“No, nor will be till men and maidens are too 
wise to make mistakes.^^ 

“ Are you sure we will not be too late at the 
Tower ? ” she asked in a happy voice. 

“We can start and see ; we can have our own 
little excursion, anyway.’^ 


XL 


MES. VAISTDEEVEEE IS FULL OF TALK. 

Lunch was over ; they were not too late, and the 
surprise of their coming made a pleasant sensation 
in the small party ; they sat in groups on the 
grass, near enough to each other for the flow of 
conversation not to be interrupted ; Griffin and 
Bud seemed to be everywhere at once, and talking 
to every one at once, and his mother thought with 
a dissatisfied frown that they seemed to be about 
the same age. Griffin’s mother did not bring out 
the best in him. Mrs. Vanderveer, in a gray dress 
with scarlet poppies in her gray hat, leaned back 
against the cushion that was her constant travel- 
ling companion, and looked at everybody, and 
talked to everybody. 

Bud whispered to her mother that Mrs. Vander- 
veer was full of talk, but it was nice.” 

‘‘You must see Malmantile,” said Mrs. Vander- 
veer lazily, “ you ride through a mountain gorge, 
( 120 ) 


MRS. VANDERVEER IS FULL OF TALK. 121 


and the place is on the hill-top ; think of a forti- 
fied village, so strong and yet so small ; within 
the old walls now is only a single street of cot- 
tages.” 

“We can’t,” objected Bud, “we can’t see many 
more places ; we shall soon be on the wing 
again.” 

“ Whither away this time ? ” asked Griffin. 

“We may go home,” replied Mrs. Chevil, “we 
have had letters. 

“ I hate letters,” said Bud, “ something always 
happens after a letter.” 

“ It is what happens before the letter that I 
hate,” returned her father ; “ this may be our last 
excursion, unless you are all willing to stay with- 
out Pater.^’ 

Each young face was shadowed, each, excepting 
Eizpah’s ; after two months of Florence she was 
homesick for what she hardly knew. 

“ I am not willing to stay without you. Pater,” 
decided his wife, resting her hand for an instant 
upon his. 

“Especially as I shall not be bere,^^ supple- 
mented Griffin. 

“ And Kizpah, you have had a letter, too/’ said 
Bee, “ does your lawyer send for you ? ” ' 


122 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“I wish there was some one to send for me,” 
said Eizpah. 

“ Where to ? ” questioned Florence, who did not 
often ask questions of Eizpah. 

“ Anywhere ; I would be glad to go to any por- 
tion of the habitable globe to somebody who could 
not do without me ; I had that so long, I do not 
know how to live without it.” 

“Stay with us, dear,” said Pater, kindly, “and 
we shall learn not to do without you.” 

“ smiled Eizpah, brushing her eyes clear. 

“You are all richer in each other than in anything 
else.” 

“ Well, I’m going back to England, now that my 
May holiday is over,” said Griffin’s mother. “ I 
shall set my boy adrift again and settle down for 
the summer in Teignmouth.” 

“ I shall say good-bye to you there,” said Griffin. 

“ That is as I say,” declared his mother, tapping 
his arm with her fan. “ I want you to be on your 
way eastward.” 

“ And I shall go home and go to work,” exclaim- 
ed Mrs. Olmstead; “my rest has made me young 
again.” 

“ Do you have to work ? ” inquired Bud, cu- 
riously. 


MRS, VANDERVEER IS FULL OF TALK. 123 

“Yes, 1 have to,” was the smiling reply, “there 
are fifty girls at home, whom I am interested in.” 

“ And go back to your busy, hurried times, and 
leave all these quaint places, all these refreshing 
places,” said Mrs. Vanderveer discontentedly. “I 
cannot see what is the good of your life to you ; I 
can see what it is to some others, but you never 
have a day of your own.” 

“ No: I do not — in the sense you speak.” 

“ In any sense — don’t be transcendental, which is 
another word for nonsensical ; you might as well go 
with me and stay with me and enjoy yourself. 

“You are very kind.” 

“ In that tone ! I know what that means; it 
means a deliberate, decided, wilful I wmi. ” 

The distressed tone of conviction brought a 
shout of laughter. 

“ And the worst of it is you are so contented.” 

“^Why on eai'th shouldn’t she be ? ” asked GriflSn. 

“ For several reasons — on earth. I suppose they 
are all of them on earth,” was the grim reply. 
“Your plans, Maria, and your system, wear me 
out ; you are always ahead ; I really believe you 
wind your watch at noon so as to have it done at 
bed time,” she persisted, complainingly. 

“ System is a part of me.’’ 


124 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“Yes, that and having faiih^' Mrs. Vanderveer 
went on, becoming irritated; “you seem to think 
that touches everything.” 

“ It does — in mo.” 

“You would live longer if you would take life 
easier.” 

“ It is how I live that chiefly concerns me.” 

“ And that is what concerns me about you ; Giles, 
can’t you talk to your mother ? ” 

“ I will — to-morrow,” promised Giles, smiling 
down into the eyes that raised themselves with 
loving recognition to his. 

“ That’s the way you spoil her,” half provoked 
at them both. “ Maria, you and I will grow apart 
if we live in such opposite directions.” 

Eizpah’s wonder was how they had ever gro’wn 
together. 

“ I wanted you to know something of Europe.^’ 

The one thing that Mrs. Vanderveer had learned 
effectually in her travels was to despise people who 
stayed at home. 

“ There’s time enough for that.” 

“ When, I’d like to know,” with quick irritation. 

“ When I am through with better things.” 

“ You never will be through ! Giles, can’t you do 
something with her ?” in a pathetic tone of appeal. 


MRS. VANDERVEER IS FULL OF TALK. 125 


“ When she doesn’t know better how to do some- 
thing with herself,” answered Giles, amused with 
them both. 

“ I am out of patience with you both; I’m glad 
Mrs. Chevil is on my side, and Florence. They do 
not believ§ in going home to ‘ work.’ ” 

“ No,” laughed Florence, ‘‘ I would rather stay 
here and play.” 

“ Pater, is it business ? ” asked Bee, leaning back 
against his shoulder. 

‘‘We have had pleasure first, and now business 
afterward ; I came to take you home, and hoped it 
would dawn upon you.” 

“ It hasn’t: it has burst,” said Emily. 

“ Then you wont see Alvernia ! Maria, I must 
take you there. There’s no place like it ; it would 
suit your devout spirit if you were more contem- 
plative and not such a busybody. It is on the 
summit of a mountain, and was given to St. Fran- 
cis in 1224. The first monks built cells there with 
the branches of trees, and had to have a guard of 
armed men to protect them from the wild beasts. 
The buildings are wonderful now, when you think 
of those first cells. Strangers are always welcome 
and hospitably fed on their wretched stuff. In 
summer it is pleasant enough, but in winter it is 


126 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


terrible; and they have no fires in their cells. 
Eight hours of every twenty-four are passed in the 
church ; one hour and a half is a little past midnight. 
Three times a week they scourge themselves in 
the darkness, and the clashing of their iron chains 
must be something dreadful. They take care of 
the sick and perform all their own manual labor; 
they know very little of the outside world and 
seem contented — to strangers, anyway, with their 
dreary monotony. They are all wedded to Poverty. 
Maria, wouldn’t you like a life like that ? ” 

“ Mother, you know better ! ” exclaimed Griffin, 
angrily. 

‘‘ I suspect she will come to it, she is on the way 
to it,” persisted Mrs. Vanderveer, not at all dis- 
pleased or embarrassed. ‘‘And she will take Miss 
Kizpah along in her train. Miss Eizpah, don’t 
you be fascinated with her and have all your 
young life taken out of you by doing the works of 
an old woman before your time.” 

Eizpah’s smile was grave with the influence of 
the morning. 

“Fun is getting into her all the time,” said Grif- 
fin, smiling brightly at her; “her cheeks grow 
rounder by the day; she has grown five years 
younger since she came to Florence.” 


MRS, VANDERVEER IS FULL OF TALK, 127 


“That is what I brought her for,” said Pater, 
peering kindly into the face at his side, “ and now 
that is done that is another reason for going 
home.” 

“ I don’t like it,’^ said Griffin, with discontent in 
his eyes. “I don’t see what Giles and I have got 
fo be banished to wandering for.” 

“ For the sake of your future,” said his mother, 
with a new determination in her voice. 

“ I like my present better,” he demurred, with a 
glance at Eizpah; both sn^iled, with evident 
enjoyment of each other. 

“ Griffin, you are such a boy,” exclaimed his 
mother, provoked at something she saw, or imag- 
ined she saw. 

“ Only a year longer of it, mother,” he returned 
sweet-temperedly, “then Pve got to go to work.” 

“I only hope you will,” she replied, “but I’ve 
no more idea of what you are fit for than if I’d 
never seen you before to-day.” 

“Eizpah, do you know?” he demanded, “you 
saw me yesterday.” 

“ I would not tell you if I knew; it must come 
out of the inside of yourself.” 

“ I think I will wed Poverty and go to Alvernia 
and smite myself with irons at midnight.” 


128 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ You will wed something in a hurry, I know; 
you are rash and impetuous and headstrong; I 
couldn’t sleep nights if it were not for Giles.” 

“ I am glad Giles exists,” said Griffin, unmoved. 

“ So am I,” added Bud, with frank admiration. 

When Kizpah smiled, the light in her eyes was 
very warm ; it was very warm now ; happening to 
look up, Giles caught it. They had not had five 
minutes conversation together, alone, since meet- 
ing in Florence; he had not desired it; she was 
not at all sure what she desired; it was pleasant to 
study him with the others; he was proving him- 
self, in the small things that tell, to be considerate 
of others, to have a high purpose, to be steadfast 
and strong; and she acknowledged to herself, if 
he were not her ideal of Christian manliness, what 
was her ideal ? 

It needed but his mother’s presence to bring 
him out to perfection. 

The blue eyes of Florence were disturbed; 
“play” — if such a disappointing day as this was 
play — was losing its charms; perhaps she might 
be ready to go home; she could not think of 
anything she wished to do at home o-r anywhere. 
She would not care for Florence without Griffin; 
would she care for any place without him ? 


MRS, VANDERVEER IS FULL OF TALK, 129 


‘‘Through what the years have given me and 
taken from me,” said Mrs. Olmstead, in reply to 
something she was thinking, “I have come to 
think of the world as a place to work in, and to 
grow rested and strong and bright in that we may 
work again. That may sound harsh and hopeless 
and hard to these young ears— it would to me at 
seventeen or nineteen, and perhaps at twenty-five; 
but, now the work for the sake of the work and 
for the sake of those who need it, and for His 
sake who is the Worker above us all, is my 
greatest joy. Eest would be nothing to me unless 
work came after it. Do not look discouraged, 
Florence, hard work is the best fun in the world.” 

Eizpah lifted her eyes to Giles, who was still 
watching her. “I do not wonder at you now,” 
she said, “ I see how you have been made.” 

“ Nor at me,” said Griffin, under his breath. 

“Somebody says that a child’s education is 
begun a hundred years before he is born,” said 
Pater. 

“ That’s what’s the matter with me,” laughed 
Griffin, with something of the bitterness and hard- 
ness that his mother brought out, “ I wasn’t there 
to see to mine and nobody else cared.” 

“ Mr. Olmstead,” Eizpah uttered his name with 
9 


130 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


a new hesitancy, “have you read to them yet 
about Milton ? 

“ It is a bit out of a poem that I chance to 
remember : — 

* Sacred be 

His yiUa, (justly it was called the Gem) 

Sacred the lawn, where many a cypress threw 
Its length of shadow, while he watched the stars.^ ” 

“Did Milton come here? ” asked Bud. 

^ There, unseen, 

Gazing with reverent awe — ^Milton, his guest. 

Just then came forth, all life and enterprise 5 
He in his old age and extremity, 

Blind, at noonday exploring with his staff, 

His eyes upturned as to the golden sun, 

His eye balls idly rolling. Little then 
Bid Galileo think whom he received ; 

That in his hand he held the hand of one 
Who could requite him.’ ” 

“ I wish people wouldn’t always write poetry 
about things,” exclaimed Bud. 

“ We can talk prose,^^ comforted Eizpah. 

“ Lef s,^^ cried GriflSn. “ Lady Blossom, let’s you 
and I find some daffodils and tulips, and not find 
anything to rhyme with them.” 

“Maria, you haven’t begun to see Florence,” 
began Maria’s friend in a tone of childish com- 
plaint. “You haven’t seen the Cloister where the 


MRS, VANDERVEER IS FULL OF TALK, 131 


vagabond cats are fed; anybody can take a cat 
there and leave it to be taken care of; all the cats 
are fed when the clock strikes twelve ; bits of 
bread and meat collected from house to house are 
brought in a sack, and from all the walls and roofs 
the hungry cats come rushing down hissing and 
screaming. It^s enough to drive one wild.^^ 

“ Now we know how babies and cats are fed in 
Florence,” cried GriflSn; “come. Floss.” 

He gave her his hand and they walked away 
hand-in-hand. 


XIL 


geiffin’s lectuee. 

After a moment Florence drew her hand away, 
with a pettish, “ Don’t be so childish, Griffin.” 

“ You haven’t called me Griff for an age.” 

“ What is an age ? ” 

“ Since Kizpah came.” 

“ It seems an age to me.” 

“And to me ; I have learned a dozen things 
from her ; I have unearthed myself to her ; she is 
good to have anything to say to me ; I believe I 
^ have confessed to her half the sins of my lifetime.” 

Florence made no reply ; she could not make a 
sympathetic one ; Griffin had half-deserted her for 
this new, strange, half-educated girl, who belonged 
to nobody, and who was so ugly that she could not 
bear to look at her. 

The bullocks were taking their patient, slow 
way among the furrows adorned with flowers, the 

peasants themselves had stuck flowers behind 
( 132 ) 


GRIFFIN^ S LECTURE, 


133 


their ears or in their belts, women were sitting hj 
the wayvside, talking or singing, busy at their 
straw work, children were playing about as light- 
hearted as children play everywhere. 

^ Don’t you think that May time 
Is pleasanter than March ? ’ ” 


sang Griffin. 

May is over and all our May times, and we are 
going home,'’ said Florence. 

“ I wish I were going too.” 

“Why?” 

“I wajit to go home and begin to be a man ; 
IVe been a good-for-nothing long enough.” 

“ IVe heard of men living in Florence.” 

“ But I want to be an American citizen ; it 
dawns upon me that America has need of citi- 
zens ; I wish I knew if I am fitted for any special 
thing.'' 

“ Go to Fowler and have your head examined,” 
proposed his companion with a scornful laugh. 
“ Eizpah has discovered what is in your heart, it 
may be there is something in your head.” 

“ I say, why don’t you like Eizpah ? ” 

“ Because I don’t,” said Florence shortly, “ and I 
never shall.” 


134 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


‘‘That^s like a woman.” 

“ She goes against my grain, if you understand 
that.’’ 

do understand it; she is as brave and strong 
as a lioness, and you are a pretty, soft, white kit- 
ten,” cried GriflGin, with severe indignation. 

“You don’t have to stay with the white kitten; 
don’t you want to take me to that place to be 
fed?” 

“ I’d like to take you somewhere to be fed ; I’d like 
to send you somewhere with Eizpah, till you got 
rid of your vanity.” 

“ You are certainly not talking poetry to me,” 
was the light reply, with the suspicion of t^ars in 
the voice. 

“I like you too well for that, Blossom, dear; I 
want you to be the sweetest woman in the world; 
as sweet and wholesome as you are beautiful. It 
says somewhere that the king’s daughters are glori- 
ous within ; you are glorious without.” 

“ I do not see the use of being beautiful; nobody 
loves me any better ; papa and mamma love Bee 
just as well, and people like to talk to Rizpah as 
well as if they liked to look at her. You have 
been with her twice as much this last month, as 
you have been with me.” 


GRIFFIN^ S LECTURE. 


135 


“ I know it,” he answered candidly, “ and I told 
yon why. She shows me myself. I think women 
were made to help men to be good; they don^t do 
it half the time, though.” 

1 suppose I never do.’^ 

“ Yes you do,” he replied, penitently; ‘‘ but you 
don’t go down deep enough : you stop too near the 
surface.’’ 

“ I suppose I am not deep enough myself” 

“You haven’t found your depth yet; you think 
too much of the outside of yourself; and I don’t 
see very well how you can help it, either,” he 
returned with loving admiration. 

“ I despise myself,” said Florence, earnestly. “ I 
wish I were as ugly as she is.” 

“Don’t, pray,” he laughed, “ for what would 
there be of you then ? ” 

“ I think you are cruel to me, Griffin.” 

“ I know 1 am. I am a bear. But I do want 
you to change.” 

“ I can’t be like her.” 

“1 don’t want you to be just like her.” 

“ I don’t know what to be like — like Mrs. 01m- 
stead ? ” 

“Not yet. Be the sweetest, and dearest girl 
in the world. Don’t be vain, don’t be envious, 


136 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


don’t be jealous, don^t want to be first and have 
all.^’ 

The crimsoned face and full eyes were turned 
away ; he had never lectured her quite like this, and 
it must be Eizpah’s fault. 

“ Has she told you about me ? 

“Who ?^^he questioned, astonished. 

“ Eizpah.^^ 

She would not say “ Chevil,” for what right had 
this unknown girl to the good, old honorable 
name ? 

“ She has never uttered a word that you would 
not be pleased to hear; she says you are to her 
what a flower is.^^ 

“And evidently thinks I have about as much 
soul,” said the girl, with strong bitterness. 

“She did not confide that to me.” 

“ You have told me what not to be.” 

“ I donT know how to tell you what to be, any 
better than I know how to tell myself. I don't want 
you to be like Mrs. Olmstead, exactly, or like Eiz- 
pah, exactly, or like your mother, exactly.” 

“I couldnh; they are all beyond me.” 

“ I know you are humble, or you wouldiiT take 
what I say without bidding me to go, and you are 
forgiving ever to speak to me again.” 


GRIFFIN^ S LECTURE, 


137 


I don’t always feel like speaking to you again.” 

“Then we will turn back; I couldn’t stand a 
silent walk; I would rather be berated than let 
alone.” 

When they returned, after an hour, Florence 
had a new flower for Eizpah; her mother gave 
her a quick glance, for there was trouble in her 
eyes. 


XIIL 

OITE OF bee’s air-castles. 


I DON^T like to believe that we shall never sit 
here and talk again,” said GriiBBn, dolefully throw- 
ing himself down beside Emily. 

“ But I am going home to my boys,” she 
answered, gaily. 

“ As if 1 were not one of them,” he reproached. 

“ You, lazy fellow ! Tim would have filled ten 
note books with the sights of Florence by this 
time.” 

“Oh, you have done that.” 

“ In my letters. I’ve written a description of 
every place and every picture — 

“ And person,” he supplemented. 

“ I do not rave about people, as you do.” 

“ Bee, you will be doleful without me, wont 
you ? ” he asked, drawing her down beside him on 
the fiags. 

“ I believe I want to go home, too — now that I 
( 138 ) 


^ ONE OF BEE^S AIR-CASTLES. 


139 


am thinking of it. Just think how horrid it 
would be to be ‘ the Man without a Country.’ ” 

“ America isn’t particularly my country/’ said 
Griffin, lazily. 

“Hear him!” cried Bee. “ Griff, I almost despise 
you.” 

“I disclaim all patriotism, for it is not in me; 
not one particle; I would not cheat the govern- 
ment out of a one cent postage stamp, and I take 
a proud pleasure, or shall, in paying my taxes, and 
the American flag is the bravest flag that floats, 
but that isn’t patriotism. 1 would not enlist in any 
army that fought against England any sooner 
than I would against the United States; but that 
is not that I love either country better, but that I 
do not believe in that barbarous way of settling 
difficulties. The Maker of this world loves it all 
and I love it all ; I believe that I belong to all the 
world and all the world belongs to me. Such a 
small spot as America is, with its bits of land and 
bits of water. I do not love my native country 
best, any more than I love best one field in the big 
farm that I shall own by-and-by; some spots at 
Hill View have associations, and America has its 
associations. It has been rather easy for me to 
learn English. That’s one reason for my loyalty,’’ 


r 


140 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


he added, with humor in his eyes, I never could 
have spoken Chinese.” 

“ I don’t think that is so unpatriotic,” said 
Florence. 

“ I do,” said Bee, stoutly; he doesn’t know two 
things about America to be proud of.^’ 

“ Oh, yes, you were born there, that’s one,^’ said 
Griffin, seriously, “ and my possessions are there, 
that’s two.” 

“ Much you care for your possessions,” re- 
torted Bee. “ I am ashamed of an American like 
you.” 

“ Perhaps there isn’t another like me.” 

“Mr. Olmstead isn’t,” said Bud, “he knows 
about America.” 

“ Yes,” replied Mr. Olmstead, thus appealed to, 
“the founders of Lynn (in Massachusetts) after 
exploring ten or fifteen miles, came home, doubt- 
ing whether the country was worth anything 
further west.” 

Mr. Chevil laughed long and loud. Bee clapped 
her hands in great enjoyment. 

“Griffin, how big is America?” she demanded, 
in the tone of addressing a big boy at the foot of 
the class. 

“ Oh, I know you could lose Europe in it — in 


ONE OF BEE^S AIR-CASTLES. 


141 


the United States; please don’t talk about all North 
America.” 

“ I didn’t intend to ! Do you know that the 
United States raises one half the gold and silver 
that is used in all the world? We have iron 
enough and plenty over to supply all the world 
with iron. Thousands of square miles of mineral 
wealth lie wholly untouched.” 

Don’t talk like a book,” he pleaded, comi- 
cally. 

“ Did you think I found it out for myself by 
travelling?” she retorted. “England has to 
travel three thousand miles for her cotton, 
and we raise our own. At the Exposition in 
Paris, five gold medals were given for the great- 
est inventions and discoveries, and how many 
do you think the stupid Yankees got? Only 
five.” 

“ Hurrah ! ” shouted Griffin, throwing up his 
hat. 

“ But you don’t care,” rebuked Bee. 

“ Oh, yes, I do — when it comes to that. My 
patriotism, like some other islfnsy is only latent.” 

“ Why don’t you go home and buy land, hun- 
dreds and hundreds of acres, and employ men and 
build cottages for them, and raise great crops and 


142 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


found a township ? And name it after you, and 
have a school for the boys and girls and a church 
— there^s room out west for a man like you, with 
energy and money and common sense. I read 
about two townships, one founded by an infidel 
and one by a Christian, and the difference as the 
years went on was astounding. I wish I could 
remember it all ; it has made a difference in 
everybody and everything ; if I were a man I 
would do it. I suppose I can% being a woman. It 
is one of my air-castles.’^ 

“ Bravo ! ” cried her father lifting her to her feet 
to kiss her glowing cheeks. 

“Mother, would you like it?^^ inquired Griffin, 
seriously. “ I always said I wanted to be a 
farmer.” 

“ No,” was the reply, with imperative de- 
cision. “ I hope for something better than that 
for you.” 

“Nothing could be better,” cried Bee, with 
flashing eyes ; “ think of such influence fifty years 
or a hundred years hence.” 

“Giles, will you go?” asked his friend; “they 
need men like you out there — west of Lynn.” 

“ They need wise and true and strong women, 
besides,” replied Giles. 


ONE OF BENS AIR-CASTLES. 


143 


“ Oh, we^l take them with us, a palace car load,” 
said Griffin. 

“They don^t need girls like me out there,” 
thought poor Florence, still smarting ui^der the 
lash of Griffin^s true words, “ they do not need 
girls like me — anywhere. 


XIV. 


THANK YOU.’ 

Two days later Giles and his mother called upon 
the Chevils, and found — to their secret delight — 
Eizpah alone in the morning-room. 

“ Everybody is away,” was her greeting. 

“Then we will stay with nobody,” replied Mrs. 
Olmstead. 

“ I believe mother is glad to find you alone,” 
said Giles. 

“He thinks I have a plan,” said his mother. 
“ I do want to discover your plan for the summer, 
Eizpah.” 

In his sauntering about the room Giles picked 
up a book and seated himself in a corner; the two 
ladies were on a sofa near a window ; there was 
something in the poise of Eizpah’s head that went 
to the heart of Giles ; did she feel so alone ? Had 
she heard bad news ? Was his presence trouble- 
some to her ? 

( 144 ) 


THANK YOW 


145 


‘‘ Their plans are all arranged/^ said Eizpah^s 
voice ; “ they do things in a minute. Griffin and 
Mrs. Vanderveer have been with them; to-morrow 
— I am swept along and included almost without 
deciding myself — by morning train we go to 
Eome, and stay awhile there.^^ 

‘"That is good.^^ This assent came from the 
corner where Giles was pretending to read. 

“ Oh, Mr. Olmstead, you know all about it,” 
cried Eizpah, turning to him. 

“ Griffin has swept me along, too.” 

“Then you know all about Monday to Naples, 
and Tuesday, Vesuvius and Pompeii, and a sail on 
the bay to Capri and back to Eome Thursday.” 

“ That is very enticing,” said Mrs. Olmstead, in 
a tone that would have struck Florence as holding 
good times that were not all hard work. 

“ In Eome the rest of the week ! I like that; I 
would like to stay longer. Then to Pisa and 
Geneva — I have written it all down and up, study- 
ing up the places. Sunday is to be a day of rest at 
Geneva. I wish we might stay there all summer. 
Wouldn’t you like a summer in Switzerland — with 
me ? ” Eizpah made her proposal timidly and 
with hesitation. “ Have you the time and the in- 
clination ? ” 

10 


146 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“ I have the inclination with all my heart,” was 
the cordial reply ; “how much we might learn 
together.” 

“I am so in love with the idea that I can get no 
farther with my planning; and you would be my 
guest, dear Mrs. Olmstead,” Kizpah pleaded, rest- 
ing her hand upon the gloved hand of her friend. 
“It will make me so happy ; nothing else would 
make me so happy.” 

“Rizpah, you are irresistible,” said Mrs. Olm- 
stead, with a quick moistening of the eyes. “ I am 
ready to think that nothing else would make me 
so happy.” 

“ School-girls ! ” Giles called out from over his 
book. 

“They expect to go to Lausanne and Interlaken 
and Paris, and on to London, and then take steam- 
er at Liverpool for New York.” 

“And Helen will meet her friends in London. 
Yes; she told me.” 

“ I have not said anything to any one about 
staying in Switzerland; they may not be pleased 
to leave me, even with you. Mrs. Chevil 
includes me in everything, most kindly, as 
she does the girls, and I love to be with them, 
but I love better to be with you. I want to 


THANK you: 


147 


have time to think and get ready for some- 
thing.” 

The blue eyes regarded her very seriously. 

“ I cannot tell you to-day; I must ask the Lord 
what he will have me do, where go, and where 
stay. My school is doing without me ; Miss 
Sharpe writes that I must not hurry home, and the 
long vacation will soon begin ; there is the usual 
vacation work, but she says she is equal to it, and 
she is ! ” 

“ Mother.” 

“ Now, Giles, don’t influence me. You always 
choose the easy and happy thing for me.” 

“ If somebody didn’t, I don’t know what would 
become of you. Miss Eizpah, I do not know that 
I can trust her with you; you will not make holi- 
days for her, like her friend Helen.” 

“Every day will be a holiday to me,” said Eiz- 
pah, joyously; “ it will be rest and recreation to be 
with her.” 

“You are right there,” he assented, “but sup- 
pose Helen also chooses to stay.” 

Eizpah’s frightened glance at him brought a 
laugh to his lips ; his mother smiled. 

“ She wouldn’t stay, Giles ; there would be two 
of us.” 


148 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


‘‘ I wish there were three of you, for old Griff’s 
sake/’ was the energetic response. 

“ Dear old Griffin,” half sighed Mrs. Olmstead. 

“ He is full of plans,” said Kizpah, ‘‘ but his 
mother doesn’t approve.” 

“ She has never approved openly of anything he 
has said or done since he was able to speak or do,” 
replied Mrs. Olmstead. “I love Helen, but Griffin 
is a cause of contention between us. She loves 
him, but she does not understand him, or how to 
help him, or how to make him happy; she bewails 
it herself, and says he is so peculiar.” 

“ He loves ^er,” said Kizpah. 

“When he isn’t out of patience with her,” said 
Giles. 

“Life is happiness to the boy,^’ said Mrs. Olm- 
stead. 

Kizpah thought she would not have said that 
had she seen him last evening; he had come to 
her, as he phrased it, “as blue as indigo,” and 
jpoured out a heart full of bitterness o-ad disap- 
pointment; for six hours he had argued with his 
mother, urging her to consent to his going home 
and preparing for that large life in the West that 
Bee had proposed; it had struck his fancy and 
touched his heart. 


“ THANK VOLT,” 


149 


“ It would make a man of me,” he pleaded, 
“and I could help make a man of some one else. 
I shall have the money ; I have the energy, and 
experience is a thing that grows by the day; the 
life suits me; there are plenty of honest young fel- 
lows and plenty of good wives ready to go with 
their husbands; a home missionary and a school- 
master w^ould be needed immediately; Pll found 
the toAvn and call it Vanderveer, after my father.” 

But his arguments and persuasions, his tears, 
even, for his impassioned speech was at the last 
broken with tears, had no other effect than to send 
her to her room with a nervous headache, refusing 
to kiss him good-night, for he was a stubborn, 
rebellious son, and always had been, and always 
would be, and she wished his father were alive to 
have some authority over him, and to teach him 
common sense. 

“ I wont give up,” he said to Eizpah, “I’ll cram 
myself with knowledge of the West ; perhaps my 
money irr-for Christ’s Kingdom, who knows? 
Eizpah, I believe in your faith ; will you put your 
prayers on my side ? ” 

“ I do not dare,” she said. “ I will ask the Lord 
to work his will {n you and do his work with you ; 
will that do ? ” 


150 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ Yes/^ he said, holding her hand in his large, 
warm grasp, “ and 111 put my prayers on that side, 
too.’^ 

Kizpah did not speak for a moment ; she was 
thinking of Griffin^s eyes when he had promised to 
put his prayers on “ that side.” 

“ Sometimes, said Mrs. Olmstead, “ we are 
allowed to comfort ourselves with small plans of 
our own, while we are waiting for the more wise 
plan ; a disappointed prayer teaches us that there 
is something better.’^ 

“ Mrs. Olmstead, it frightens me when I think 
how I may be permitted to influence some one^s 
life through my prayers, for myself, or for them.” 

“ Why does it frighten you ? Do you think God 
will give to your hurt, or to some one^s hurt ? 

“No; I know that; but — the responsibility. 
Cornelius prayed and brought Peter to him.^^ 

Mrs. Olmstead quoted : 

^ The saint beside the ocean prayed, 

The soldier in his chosen bower.^ ” 

“ Prayer is such a power that if God did not 
move me what to pray for, I should be afraid of 
it,” said Kizpah. “ I read somewhere that in the 
spiritual world prayer is as great a force as gravi- 


THANK you: 


151 


tation or electricity in the natural world. And 
think of having that in our hand.^^ 

“ With your hand held to its slightest movement 
in the strong wise grasp of him who makes all 
law,” said Giles, tossing the unread book aside, and 
rising to come to them. “ Do you remember, Miss 
Eizpah, that long talk one evening in Mrs. Chevil’s 
room, when she said for twenty years her life had 
been one long answered prayer.” 

“ Yes,’^ said Eizpah, her color deepening, “ and 
you quoted Sir Powell Buxton, how he kept open a 
passage in the Old Testament, and you found it 
for us — and said if any one opened his Bible it 
would turn of itself to the place; he believed his 
prayers influenced the House of Commons in the 
conflict for West Indian Emancipation.^^ 

“ And I remember something she said — I never 
left her without being up-lifted — she told us that 
one of the early preachers of New England, after 
bidding good-bye to all his friends on his death 
bed, turned away and asked: ‘ Where now is Jesus 
of Nazareth, my most intimate, most faithful 
friend ? ^ 

Eizpah turned her full eyes away ; then brushing 
them clear, she* arose impulsively: ‘‘ Mr. Olmstead, 
I want you to see her last words to me; she would 


152 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


like you to see them.’' He went to a window and 
stood looking down into the street, not speaking, 
imtil she stood beside him with the open letter. 

For some time he did not hear a sound of the low 
voices upon the sofa; he was back in the sunny 
winter room, with its long windows, and blooming 
plants, the peaceful face, the glad eyes whenever 
Eizpah re-entered the room, the satisfied, childlike 
smile whenever Eizpah touched her, and the 
bright talks of the best things, moved him now 
with a power greater than at the time. 

No wonder the girl longed for some one to ‘‘need 
her like that. He needed her ; but she would not 
believe that it was like that. 

On the stairs the sound of voices; the merry bus- 
tle filled the room; Griffin and his mother were 
among them ; Griffin, more grave than his gravest 
mood, his mother excited and laughing. 


X7. 

HER WAY. 

Early in the evening of one of their sight-seeing 
days in Eome, weary and somewhat perplexed, 
Eizpah sat alone in her room; Florence shared 
it with her, and she was attracted to the girl, 
and loving her more than she would have believed 
possible a while ago. It would be such a real 
happiness to have a sister like other girls ; if Flor- 
ence would put her arms about her as she did 
about Emily, or talk of little plans as she did with 
them all, how glad she would be. No one in the 
world could call her “ sister or ‘‘ cousin,^^ and she 
had no right to any name of kinship herself; she 
had never said “ father or mother,’’ and she nev- 
er could; sitting there alone she repeated softly 
“mother,” and then “father.” A sister like Flor- 
ence, a mother like Mrs. Olmstead, a brother like 
Griffin, how rich she would be ! A friend like 

Giles Olmstead, if he would only be her friend 
( 153 ) 


154 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


again ! And then, even without one tie of blood 
in the whole wide world she would have kin 
enough to be as happy as others girls. Was there 
the usual Tuesday evening prayer-meeting in the 
school house to-night at home, and was the house- 
keeper, Mrs. Hyer, and her niece, who was staying 
with her for company until she went back, going 
down the road towards it? Boys were hanging 
about the door, people in twos and threes or sin- 
gly were coming up the road and down the road, 
one, perhaps across the fields, and the minister 
from Chatham was driving up in his buggy and 
would spring out and hitch his horse to the fenca 
She could almost hear the sound of the singing, 
the shrill voice of the leader and the creaking music 
of the small organ. In coming out some one might 
ask Mrs. Hyer where Eizpah was now, and what 
she was doing ? 

In Eome ! Was Eome in another world? And 
what was she doing? Getting homesick? Was 
she longing for her rpom at home ? Could any 
one be tired of having ‘‘ good times ? ” 

A tap at the door announced a visitor ; she 
arose and opened it, expecting to see Mrs. 
Olmstead or one of the Chevils. 

GriflBn’s mother, with a serious look in her 


HER WAY. 


155 


lively face and a doubtful manner, stood before 
her. 

“ I knew you were alone, Miss Rizpah ; I have 
something to say to you/’ 

Something not pleasant, Eizpah divined, from 
the flutter of her manner and the inflection of 
her voice. 

“ Come'in, please,” invited Eizpah, not cordially. 
“ I hope I have not displeased you.” 

“ I am so glad to have you broach the subject,” 
began the lady, with a voice of relief, “ you are so 
straightforward, even to brusqueness, that I knew 
we should understand each other.” 

She sank into a chair and opened her fan ; it was 
suspended from her belt by a gold chain ; she lifted 
it and dropped it twice before she spoke again. 
Eizpah seated herself opposite and looked at her 
with questioning calmness. 

“You have a great deal of influence with Griffin, 
too much. He is taken with you, he is apt to be 
taken with a new face. Not that I believe he is 
taken with your face; he is my only son and I 
am naturally concerned that he should not spoil 
his life in the beginning of it. Do you understand 
me?” 

“No,” said Eizpah, easily, “I do not.” 


156 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


“You are very artful or artless, I cannot decide 
which; of course you know he has inherited 
money; he is young even for his years, and so im- 
pulsive and headstrong and hard to be governed; 
I have never governed him, he has always been 
wilful and had his way, and never done anything 
to please me. You are a great interference with 
my plans for him.’’ 

“I beg your pardon; I do not understand you — 
yet.” 

“ Then you are very stupid,” cried Mrs. Vander- 
veer, angrily. 

“ Possibly, was the quiet reply. 

“ I have other plans for him — than you.” 

Whether Kizpah understood or not^ the red 
mahogany flush heated cheek and brow. 

“ You seem to influence him where his mother 
cannot. I want you to promise me that you will 
influence him only for his good.” 

“ I hope I do not know how to do otherwise.” 

Disarmed by the tone, Mrs. Yanderveer spoke 
gently : “ He has improved lately, he isnT half as 

crude and outspoken as he was when he left home, 
and I think he isn’t as lazy; he is a lazy, ease- 
loving fellow, and thinks the world was made for 
him. If you could only help him to regard my 


HER WAV. 


157 


wishes and consult me about his plans, and not 
oppose mine ! My life is one continual worry 
because of him ! I never know what freak will 
take him next. If he would marry and go into 
business, my anxiety would be at an end, and I 
could be free to have plans of my own. In my 
mind I have chosen a wife for him, as mothers 
ouglit to have a right to do for such thoughtless 
sons; but I would no more dare speak her name to 
him ! He* would hate her at once; has he ever — 
excuse me, but he is my only son — has he ever 
proposed to you ? 

“ Proposed to me! Eizpah repeated the words 
in slow amazement, “what should he do that 
for?^^ 

Mrs. Vanderveer dropped her fan and laughed; 
in her heart she believed that* this country girl 
was not “ bright. 

“ I am relieved. But he might take the freak 
into his head. It is something of a concession for 
me to come and plead with you: but he is never 
as open with me as he is with others ; he will talk 
to Giles^ mother by the half day about himself, and 
I have had to learn about him through what he 
has told her; but I have a plan of my own that I 
am in mortal fear about breaking to him, and yet 


158 


RIZPAH^^S HERITAGE. 


I came to him with that purpose in view — will 
you use your influence to — I don’t know what — 
exactly — ^but lead him to be considerate to me, to 
understand me, as far as his shallow nature can 
understand one of my depth of feeling; he is like 
his poor, dear, old father in being superficial and 
changeable. I haven’t been the happiest woman 
in the world, although I try to appear so — I am 
sure I can be happy now if I can have my way, 
and dear Griffin will behave like a filial son. My 
husband, poor man, made an unjust will in regard 
to me that hampers me, and gives Griffin an 
advantage over his mother. Influence him to 
think of me, not to be selfish and unjust — for he 
was such a splendid baby, and I was so happy 
when he was born. His father and I never 
understood each other; he was like Griffin, quick- 
tempered and superficial, and I never had much 
happiness except in outside life. But I could be 
happy now if I could have another opportunity, 
and somebody understood my sensitive nature ; I 
am very afiectionate and sensitive, and easily mis- 
understood. Influence Griffin to believe this, 
and not to be hard to me; you can do it; he 
believes in you.” 

The angry flush had left Kizpah’s face; she 


HER WA Y. 


159 


listened with increasing sympathy ; the poor, ex- 
cited, disappointed mother, coming to her for 
help ! 

“ I will, I certainly will,” she promised, earnest- 
ly, “if I could know how.” 

“I will tell you how; it is a secret; I am engaged 
to be married, and I am not ashamed, if I have 
a son nearly twenty-one years old. He is a good 
man, not quick with his words, but quick in his 
sympathies, quiet and deep, and I can trust him 
and understand him. Griffin is too much for me; 
his father was too much for me. I am tired of my 
life, 1 want a home, and I want to keep house and 
not care for society as I have had to do. There is 
a quiet, good housekeeper in me ; I want to dam 
stockings and make cake, as real happy women do, 
and give up going about, and sight-seeing, and 
talking about it.” 

“ I am very glad,” said Eizpah, sympathetically. 
“ Griffin will like that kind of a mother.” 

“He has never had it; Pve had to be lively to 
keep my spirits up before my husband died and 
since. His will has hampered me; I would have 
married before but for that, and Griffin might have 
had^la father to govern him. IPs too late now, and 
if he will only not be hard to me and reproach 


160 


RIZTAWh HERITAGE, 


me; if you can make him understand. You may 
tell him all the truth; I do not dare. I think I 
would rather you should tell him than Maria. He 
will not burst out and be furious to you.^^ 

“ I am not sure of that; but I am not afraid.^^ 

“ And then if you could influence him to like 
her, I should be infinitely obliged to you.’^ 

I do not know whom you mean; and if I knew 
I would not dare do it. What is the good of a 
love that has to be manufactured ? I should think 
if you love this man you speak of, you would 
know that,” cried Kizpah, in one of her bursts of 
vehemence. 

“ He rests me, and I trust him, and that is the 
kind of love I want. You think it odd for me to 
come to you ; I suppose I believe in you. One 
cannot be with you one week without knowing 
what you are.” 

Mrs. Morehouse arose and stood playing with 
her fan ; she did not feel inclined to kiss this plain 
girl, she was not demonstrative with any one, and 
as she said she “ hated homely women ; ” but there 
was something in Rizpah^s attitude that appealed to 
her, she turned back after she had reached the door. 

“You are a good woman, and I hope you will 
be a happier one than I have been.” 


HER WAY, 


161 


“Thank you/^ said Eizpah, and then with a 
quick motion she laid her hand on her arm. “ I 
think if you would tell him yourself, and not have 
it come through a stranger, it would please him 
better; you do not know how he loves you; he will 
be proud of your confidence, he will not be furious 
if you tell him as you told me ; I think he will be 
sorry for you. Aunt Eizpah said children had to 
grow up to understand their mothers, and I am 
sure they do; If you will tell him, I will do all I 
can afterward.^^ ^ 

“ It is impossible ; the words would choke me to 
death.^^ 

“ I will prepare him ; I will tell him that you 
have something to tell him. I will tell him what 
your life has been, and now you want another 
chance. I am very sorry for you.^^ 

“Well,’’ with hesitating assent, “and then he 
will make it easy for me to tell him; he is very 
frank.” 


11 


XVL 


ALPEN-STOCKS. 

“ Blossom is not like herself,’’ said Mrs. Chevil one 
morning in Eome to Mrs. Olmstead ; “ she mopes, 
and that is something unknown among us Chevils; 
she has not been like herself since we proposed go- 
ing home. Mr. Chevil and I talk her over day and 
night, and have come to a stand still. I believe she 
wishes to stay behind; Florence has been good for 
her; all winter she blossomed like the hardiest 
plant, and now look at her ! ” 

Mrs. Olmstead had been looking at her and 
thinking of her; her motherly heart yearned over 
her new paleness and new silence. 

“Forgive me, if I presume, but I do think she 
would love to stay with us — Eizpah and me — in 
our retreat among the Alps ; perhaps she needs rest ; 
we intend to rest and study and be company for 
each other; I would do my best for her, if you can 
trust me.’^ 


( 162 ) 


ALPENSTOCKS, 


163 


The thoughtfulness in Mrs. CheviPs eyes deep- 
ened ; she was not altogether pleased with the pro- 
posal ; how could it be better for her ^daughter to 
be away from her ? 

“ Excuse me — ^but I love the child — and she has 
listened so eagerly to our plan, and last night she 
told Eizpah that she wished she might stay with 
us.” 

Still Mrs. Chevil had nothing to say. 

At that moment Florence entered and threw her- 
self listlessly down upon a sofa. 

“ I hate Eome,” she exclaimed pettishly. 

“I do not believe you know what you do like,” 
replied her mother. 

“ I do not like anything,” she said, with tears 
very near her eyes, “and myself least of all.” 

“Nonsense, child,” said her mother, cheerily, “if 
you get the blues we shall all laugh at you.” 

That evening her father and mother had one of 
their usual long conferences concerning their girls ; 
about midnight they decided to ask Florence if she 
preferred to stay in Switzerland, and to give her 
her choice. 

“ I do not know how to do without her,” sighed 
Mrs. Chevil; “she has never been a week away 
from me in her life. I know she will be homesick.” 


164 


RIZFAWS HERITAGE. 


‘‘I will be easy enough for her to come home, 
then,’^ said Mr. Chevil, “ a trip across the Atlantic 
alone, will not hurt her.” 

‘‘ It will hurt me to have her do it.” 

“ She has not decided to stay, yet.” 

“ And you think she will not.” 

“I am sure of it,” was the confident reply, ‘‘she 
is the biggest baby of the four. Bud might, but 
she will not.” 

With some hesitation the plan was proposed 
early the next morning ; instantly Florence became 
radiant. “ 0 Pater ! 0 mamma, may I stay ? ” 

Her father and mother looked at each other, and 
then Pater burst into a laugh ; Mrs. Chevil would 
not even smile. 

“ Will you like it, Eizpah ? ” asked Florence. 

Perhaps Eizpah would not have liked it had not 
Mrs. Olmstead taken her into her confidence; she 
had been more than a little disappointed, and some- 
what indignant when Mrs. Olmstead had spoken 
of Florence. 

“ I would rather have any of them — we cannot 
understand each other ; she despises me, and I — do 
not admire her. She will have to be with us al- 
ways, and she does not care at all for what we care 
for. It will change everything; I know I am self- 


ALPENSTOCKS. 


1C5 


ish; but I shall not have you any more than she 
will ; I think I would rather go home than have 
her stay with us.” 

“ Eizpah, you are naughty,” reproved Mrs. 01m- 
stead. 

“I know I am, and 1 want to be; I don’t want 
to be good and have her stay.” 

“You don’t want me to be disappointed in you.” 

“ You may as well first as last: you will find 
out how selfish I am ; I had Aunt Eizpah all alone, 
and I want you all alone ; I am selfish and jealous, 
and I know I shall make it uncomfortable for her : 
Aunt Eizpah said I was spoiled, and you see I am.” 

“ Not beyond sweetening.” 

“ I don’t want to be sweet about this.” 

It was several hours before she could look or 
feel sweet about it ; but when Florence appealed 
to her, she replied sympathetically and sincerely, 
“ I wish you would stay with us ; Mrs. Olmstead 
will be like your mother, and I will try not to be 
very bad to you.” 

And then the protest from the three girls be- 
came alarming ; Emily gave Florence a shaking. 
Bee kissed her furiously, and Bud burst into loud 
weeping. Griffin came in amidst the uproar and 
lifted up his voice with Bud. 


166 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


It makes me feel as dreadful to have her stay 
as it does you, Bud,” he bemoaned. 

Then Florence laughed and sobbed and clung to 
her mother, wishing that she might go and stay 
both ; she did not know which she wanted the 
more to do, but mamma was lovely to let her 
choose, and she would write every mail to every 
one of them. 

“And to me,” said Griffin. “I shall be some- 
where and anywhere; all the time wishing I was 
somewhere else and doing something else. Mrs, 
Chevil, may she write to me every mail ? ” 

“1 will leave that to her good judgment,” was 
the severe reply, in a tone of indulgence. 

“Rizpah has promised to write every day — and 
send it twice a week, and. Blossom, I want you to 
do that, too ; only don’t send them the same days. 
I’ll write every day ; I must pour out to some- 
body. Mother is a famous letter-writer ; she has 
sent me ten sheets at a time. Budget, you will 
write to me ? And Bee ? ” 

“ May I ? ” asked Bud. 

“ l^^as coming to you ; I was just about to ask 
your father ; only I’m afraid he will think I mean 
something in your case ; Mr. Chevil, it is not her 
hand I ask, but her hand-writing.” 


ALPEN-^STOCKS. 


167 


The sunshine of Bud’s smile had dried up her 
tears; Mrs. Chevil’s eyes were less troubled, and 
Eizpah was less serious. 

“There’s a good deal of you on one side,” Griffin 
had said to Eizpah, “and Florence will help round 
you out on the other side ; she has more human 
nature in her than you have ; she will bring out 
your naughtiness and you will bring out the love- 
liness that^s hidden in her.” 

After Florence had made her decision, she be- 
came more “like herself,” and entered into the 
plan of travel and sight-seeing, with something 
approaching her winter enthusiasm ; Mrs. Chevil 
declared that she must keep her until the last 
moment, so the party did not separate in Paris or 
London, and even went together to Liverpool, to 
wish the voyagers a happy time on board the 
steamer. 

“I almost wish I were to summer in Switzer- 
land,” said Mrs. Vanderveer, “but my plans are so 
arranged — ” 

“ She has other fish to fry,” said Griffin, grimly, 
“and they must be caught in English water.” 

Florence was brave up to the last moment, and 
then broke down, with her arms about her 
mother’s neck. 


168 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“ It isn’t too late yet,” her mother whispered. 

“I choose to stay,” she half sobbed; “ I shouldn’t 
be happy at home, mamma.” 

At Liverpool Mrs. Vanderveer and Griffin 
started for Teign mouth, the home of Mrs. Van- 
derveer’s friend, and Giles became the escort 
of the ladies into Switzerland. When Griffin 
joined them, they were settled in their Swiss 
chMet, up a winding path with a brook run- 
ning beside it, and a view of the mountains 
everywhere. 

He found them delighted with everything, per- 
fectly at home in their small, pretty rooms; the 
floors were of unpainted pine, as white and clean 
as they could be made ; the sitting-room was the 
largest, but sufficiently small to merit the name of 
“cozy;” a centre table holding books and a vase 
of flowers, a red rug before the sofa ; Mrs. 01m- 
stead’s work-basket, and Florence’s fancy work 
gave it an atmosphere of home, that was hard to 
break away from; out of the window a small 
flower garden was at your feet, farther on, the val- 
ley, dotted with brown chMets, and then the glori- 
ous mountains. 

Behind the house the winding path led up and 
up among the mountains, bordered with flowers 


ALPENSTOCKS. 


169 


growing wild, that Eizpah had cultivated at home ; 
the brook was with you all the way up. 

On the first Sunday morning they were together 
they all attended French service; Florence caught 
the meaning of a sentence now and then, Giles 
followed the preacher with considerable intelli- 
gence, the others understood not a word. 

They breakfasted upon bread and honey, dined 
in the middle of the day and came together for tea 
at seven. 

“ I wish I might stay here and work,” said Giles, 
on Monday morning. 

“ITl sprain my ankle or break my back, and 
have to stay,^^ growled Griffin. “We may as well 
‘do’ this part of the country while we are here. 
It was a precious thought of Eizpah’s.” 

“We can start out from here for trips,^’ proposed 
Giles, “ we must go off on foot for awhile.” 

“ Mother will have some new plan every fifteen 
minutes for me,” said Griffin, disconsolately. “I 
have fallen into a habit of pleasing her, and it’s 
rather tough on me. She forgets that I am not a 
boy thirteen.” 

“ Your allegiance to her, is the comfort of her 
life.” 


“ It isn’t the comfort of mine.’ 


170 


RTZPAWS HERITAGE, 


‘‘Griffin, you get as blue and as weak as a 
woman; I am tempted to throw you over; call the 
girls, tell them to get their Alpen-stocks and let’s 
have a climb.’^ 

Lifting up his lazy length from the grass beside 
the brook, where they had been chatting for half 
an hour, Griffin burst out : 

^ What makes folks do as tliey^d ougkter not, 

And why donH they do as they^d oughter ? 


XVIL 

LAMP LIGHT. 

‘‘ I SUPPOSE every actioD must be either right or 
wrong ! ” exclaimed Griffin, in a musing tone from 
the sofa. 

The lamps on the centre table were lighted, and 
the ladies were gathered around it with their 
work; Mrs. Olmstead was crocheting a shawl 
for somebody’s Christmas gift, Florence was em- 
broidering silk roses on a velvet ground, and Eiz- 
pah was sewing an old-fashioned, long, white 
seam. 

Griffin had lain quiet on the sofa for as long as 
fifteen minutes; Giles was bending over his writ- 
ing by another lamp in a corner. 

“ What murderous doing are you contemplating 
now ? ” inquired Florence. 

“Writing to my mother,” he answered, in a 
savage tone; “I have something to say to her. I 
do not relish being the only male guardian of a 

(I7I) 


172 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


handsome, middle-aged lady, worth a small for- 
tune — I have something to say to her, that I hate 
like fun to say, and yet, somebody must say it. 
Dear Maria,” in his mother’s fond tone, will not 
you ? ” 

“Perhaps I have said it and it has done no 
good,” was the serious reply; “when you are in 
earnest, Griffin, you are so awfully in earnest that 
it frightens her; and when you do show a spark 
of common sense it is so uncommonly sensible 
that she is apt to regard it.” 

I have thought so myself, but in the present 
instance I am in doubt. It seems a natural thing 
for parents to settle their children in life, but when 
it comes to the son considering the question of his 
mother’s marriage, that is a different thing.” 

Florence’s startled fingers dropped her work; 
Eizpah fiushed and took hurried stitches; Giles 
kept on writing. 

“ Dear Mafia knows ail about it.” Griffin con- 
tinued, as merrily as he could to keep his voice 
from breaking. “ In my father’s will if his widow 
marry again she forfeits all but her legal rights; 
my mother’s money is a great deal to her; she 
loves ease and luxury, she loves to be known as 
the young and. wealthy and handsome Mrs. Van- 


LAMP LIGHT. 


173 


derveer. She is not forty years old, and that is all 
as natural as can be. My father was very kind 
to her and she alludes to his menjory with suitable 
tears ; but he was years and years older — I can’t 
understand why girls do such things — and when 
he died she lost an indulgent father. She has 
learned that she missed a great deal in her 
married life— I can see how myself — and now she 
has found some one about her own age whom she 
loves as a woman may love her husband, some one 
who lives in the years with her and cares for what 
she cares for; it has made her as young as a girl, 
and nervous and excitable at the same time — she 
fears me, rather, — and, the man is poor, never has 
succeeded in anything but behaving himself all 
his life, and he is unselfishly devoted to her and 
knows he can’t have her money. Now the ques- 
tion is: shall I give them my blessing and let 
them marry ? ” 

“ 0 yes, do,” cried Florence, enthusiastically. 

“ Eizpah, what do you say ?” 

Mrs. Vanderveer would not thank me for 
saying anything contrary to your plan.” 

“ Maria, what do you say ? ” 

“ Your mother knows.” 

“ But I don’t.” 


174 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“You do not need to.” 

“ But that isn’t all/^ rising and giving himself a 
shake, “I shall be a much richer fellow than I ever 
expected to be. I can go West and make a 
bigger splash than I thought.” 

“ Will your mother have enough to be comfort- 
able ? inquired Florence, with solicitude. 

“ Comfortable isn’t much to be; she wishes to 
be luxurious.” 

“Isn’t he in business?” was Florence’s next 
question. 

“Yes,” said Griffin, dryly; “his business is a 
failure just now, but he has failed honestly and 
given up every cent he has. It rather spoils the 
romance, girls, but he is a dealer in hardware — 
a commonplace man of business, with no air but 
that of solidity about him.” 

“ Where ? ” inquired Florence. “ I mean where 
is his business ? ” 

“Oh, he’s an Enghshman; she is at his sister’s 
now, in Teignmouth. They met hereabouts 
somewhere when he was abroad with an invalid 
brother; he is the kind that’s good to everybody 
but himself ; he supported that brother for years, 
and now he has his two orphan girls on his hands 
— beside my mother. The interest of her money — 


LAMP LIGHT, 


175 


what she will have, will not be luxury for all his 
incumbrances ; the little girls must be educated, he 
promised his brother that he would do for them as 
if they were his own; he’s about forty-two and 
never has had any ‘ own.’ He’s a fine fellow, that 
I can see with my prejudiced eyes, even if I did 
have to hold myself in from knocking him down 
when mother said in her sweet way : ‘My son, Mr. 
Morehouse.’ I stayed awake all that night kick- 
ing against it. And I’ve been savage ever since.” 

“That is true,” said Florence, “and I hope you 
repent of all the ugly things you have said to me.” 

“No, I don’t; it makes you too sweet*,, it 
breaks your tender heart to quarrel with me, so I 
have to do it all myself.” 

“ Your mother is very unhappy,” said Mrs. 01m- 
stead, “ her letter to me to-day was — ” 

“ If it were half equal to mine, I pity you. Yes, 
friends, I have decided to give my permission, and 
run over to England next month to give the bride 
away.” 

“ 0 Griffin ! ” was Florence’s involuntary excla- 
mation. 

“ Does he intend to go into business again ? ” 
asked Mrs. Olmstead. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Griffin, cheerfully, “ I shall 


176 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


advance the money. I shall never lose anything 
in business myself, and he may as well do it for 
me.’^ 

“ Griffin, you are good,’’ cried Florence, admir- 
ingly. 

Giles threw down his pen, and came to Griffin, 
and laid his hand on his shoulder. “I may as 
well tell you, for he never will, that as soon as he 
is of age, he will settle his mother’s property back 
upon her, and not take the advantage his fathers 
will allows him. That promise is to be his wed- 
ding present to his m other. 

Eizpah dared not lift her happy face ; she had 
thought of this, but had not, even by a word, made 
the suggestion; it was nobler coming from him- 
self than if he had consented. 

Griffin was standing behind Mrs. Olmstead’s 
chair; he bent over and kissed her. “I’ve got to 
kiss somebody,^’ he said, boyishly. “ I^m like a 
child that’s been naughty, and upon resolving to 
be good is too happy for anything. You mustn’t 
think I was a good boy and did it without a fight ; 
I was torn in two inside before I could do it. 
Poor little mother ! She’ll be the happiest little 
woman in the world. 

“ She has good reason to be,” said his mother’s 


LAMP LIGHT. 


177 


friend, drawing his face again to her lips, ‘‘ she 
was as happy as a queen when you were born.” 

There was a suspicious shining in Griffin’s eyes ; 
he walked away, and after a moment ran whistling 
down stairs. Florence’s blurred eyes were on 
her work again; how far above her he was in his 
unselfishness ; she would not be willing to do as he 
had resolved to do ; his mother had forfeited the 
money, she had no right to spend it upon another 
husband and his family ; it belonged to Griffin ; he 
would make a grand use of it ; had he a right to 
give his father’s money to strangers ? But was it 
his father’s money? Was it not his own ? If his 
mother had been like her own mother, or like the 
mother who had just now kissed him — but she 
was so exacting, so jealous of him, and so misera- 
bly misunderstood him; she did not deserve half 
the honor or half the love he gave her; she 
opposed his plans and called them “ whims,” 
and now he was understanding her, as if he 
were another woman ! Her indignation found 
vent in the words: “I hope she is ashamed of 
herself.” 

“It does not seem to me a shameful thing to 
do,” said Eizpah’s low voice ; “ I do not see how 

she can help it. Griffin was not enough to her, 

• 12 


178 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


because she could not appreciate him; she must 
have somebody.’’ 

“ Oh, I didn’t mean that I ’’ exclaimed Florence, 
impatiently. 

Giles stood behind his mother’s chair; he had 
been watching the play of Eizpah’s lips as her 
head bent lower over her w^ork. 

“ She will be touched,’’ he said, “ she will weep 
profusely, it is her way, and then she will dry her 
eyes, and think it little for him to do; it was her 
money and not his, and his father was unjust, and 
had no right to will it away from her to Griffin, 
and Griffin is only giving her what is her own; 
she will have no real appreciation of his conduct 
in the matter ; she will not even be grateful that 
he is kind and respectful to the husband she has 
chosen. Her nature is small ; it cannot hold one 
half what Griffin is to her.” 

“ Giles, don’t be too hard,” warned his mother. 

‘‘ I feel hard toward her to-night; I know some- 
thing of what he has gone through; I am hard 
when women take lightly what it costs a man 
something to give. His ideal of womanhood is so 
high, and his mother falls below in the most tri- 
fling details; she cannot even understand when 
people are unselfish; she thinks they are unselfish 


LAMP LIGHT, 


179 


from selfish motives. If some women could know 
how hard they make men’s lives ! ” 

Kizpah’s fingers trembled until the needle fell 
from them; she knew she was making his life 
hard, and yet, could she speak ? If she could 
speak, what would she say ? It was all a mistake 
from beginning to end; to-night would she say 
“yes” or “no”? Was she very weak not to un- 
derstand herself? If he were only a little more — 
like — Griffin! If only there were not that srnie- 
thing in him that she could not love 1 Might he 
not make it easier for her if he would? Griffin 
would have found a way ! 

Florence lifted her quivering baby face : “ Mr. 
Olmstead, we don’t mean to ! But we don’t know 
how to be good.” 

“ My mother will tell you,” he said, proudly, as 
Griffiffis whistle below the window sounded the 
call for him. 


XVIII. 


IN THE MOONLIGHT. 

“ Being herself, how can she do otherwise, or 
feel otherwise; the wrong is in being herself.’' 

Mrs. Olmstead broke the silence ; many stitches 
had been taken in restless thinkiog. 

‘‘Mrs. Olmstead,” Florence looked up in pitiful 
appeal, “how can I help being myself?" 

“Are you not glad to be yourself?” 

“ No,” she burst out passionately, “ I hate my- 
self; I am like Mrs. Vanderveer; I do not want to 
be a woman like her; I do not want to make it 
harder for anybody. I would like to help, 
instead.” 

“ That is what you were made for.” 

“ But I have never done it; not even the begin- 
ning of it. I have been only a pretty thing for 
people to pet. I have been growing vain and 
selfish by the day; there isn’t any sweetness in 

me, or any saltness.” 

( 180 ) 


IN THE MOONLIGHT. 


181 


“There must be, or you couldn^t feel said 

Eizpah. 

“ I don’t want to be myself any longer.” 

Eizpah’s needle became still; with enforced 
quiet she kept her hands folded within each other 

“ Are we just what we make ourselves ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Or allow ourselves to grow into added Mrs. 
Olmstead. 

“That unconscious drifting is saddest of all,” 
said Eizpah. 

“Mrs. Olmstead, I want to begin now,” said 
poor Florence, despising herself for not “ begin- 
ning” before. 

“ Not to be yourself? ” 

“To be better than myself; but isn’t myself for 
something ? ” 

“ Yourself is for everything.” 

“I wouldn’t like to give myself up; I have a 
fondness for myself,” confessed Florence, with a 
pretty flush. 

“ To say nothing of what we have for you,” said 
Mrs. Olmstead, with the fondness in her eyes. 

“ But what is the first thing to do? ” 

“ The first thing is to give yourself up; to give 
yourself away.” 


182 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


But 1 want to keep myself/’ she persisted. 

“You will have a new self instead of the old self.” 

“ I do not understand you at all,” said Florence, 
indignant with Mrs. Olmstead as well as with her- 
self. 

“Suppose that little thing down-stairs should 
come to you with her chubby hands all stained 
with pulling flowers, and putting them in yours, 
should say: ‘I don’t like my hands, they are 
dirty, they do not smell sweet,’ and begin to cry. 
What would you do ? ” 

“ Bring her up to my room and with pure water 
and sweet-scented soap make them fresh and 
clean.” 

“ Would she like them then, and want them 
back again ? ” 

“Her own little sweet hands. You saw us 
yesterday ; that is what she said : ‘ I don’t want 

my hands.’ She had been pulling something that 
had a sickening odor, and she was frightened. 
She was happy enough to have them back sweeter 
than they were before.” 

“ Don’t you want to take yourself back that 
way ? ” 

Half comprehending, Florence was silent. 

“ Tl here is One and only one to make you 


IN THE MOONLIGHT 


183 


cleansed and sweet; you cannot do it yourself, 
even as little Jean could not do it herself; you 
cannot be cleansed any other way, and until you 
are cleansed of your old self, you cannot have any 
new self.” 

“I know I cannot do it myself; I’ve been try- 
ing all winter and all the spring, and I hate my- 
self because I cannot do it; I do something that 
seems strong and sweet and unselfish, but my 
heart isn’t sweet about it.” 

Eizpah laid her hand on the fingers that were 
fumbling over the velvet. “I know I have not 
helped you.” 

“No; you haven’t. You have been horrid. 
You have looked as though you despised me. 
You are only beginning to like me now,” half 
petulantly. 

“But I do now — heartily,” said Eizpah, laugh- 
ing at her energetic confession. “I do think 
there is something real in you. You are some- 
thing better than ‘ Miss Chevil.’ ” 

Bending forward, Florence dropped her head on 
the mass of white in Eizpah’s lap. “ I have been 
worse than horrid to you; I have hated you and 
been jealous of you ; I didn’t want you to be 
named Chevil P 


184 


J^IZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


Eizpali’s lips became very white; she pushed 
the braided golden head away, and rising with an 
angry gesture, scattered her work upon the floor. 

“I have a right to it as much as you have; that 
name means so little to you ! It means my very 
breath to me.^^ 

“Florence caught her hands: “Don’t be angry 
with me. I only meant that I am trying not to 
feel so now.” 

“You can feel as you choose; what any one feels 
or thinks does not affect my right. 

“ But I am sorry,” pleaded Blossom, still holding 
her hands. 

“ What is that to me, or Aunt Kizpah ? ” cried 
Eizpah, with her eyes dark and glittering and her 
teeth set. 

“ But won’t you forgive me ? ” sobbed Florence, 
frightened at her vehemence. 

“ I do not forgive easily.” 

Florence released her hands, and Eizpah turned 
to the door that separated her sleeping-room from 
the sitting-room; it was open and she passed in 
and closed it. 

“ She has everything, father and mother and sis- 
ters ; she has her place in the world and she would 
take my name away from me,” cried Eizpah, pas- 


IN 'IHE MOONLIGHT. 


185 


sionate and heart-broken, throwing herself upon 
the bed in the darkness. “ I wish I could die and 
hide myself, and go to somebody who owns me.” 

Two hours later Florence’s light step paused at 
the bedside; the moon had risen, and shone in upon 
the dark, sleeping face. Florence could “forgive 
easily,^^ but, then, she remembered that she had 
nothing to forgive. 

“ Don’t put on airs with her. Blossom,” had been 
Budget^s parting injunction. “She is ready to 
quiver at everything.” 

And she had “put on airs;” she had not treated 
her as she would any other lady, as she would have 
treated Annt Eizpah’s niece had such an unknowm 
lady been sent to them ; it is true that she was not 
educated like a girl who had been “ finished ” 
at a fashionable school ; she knew little of music, 
her voice was very sweet, but had had no training, 
her painting she had taken up herself with occasion- 
al lessons from a country teacher, and what other 
accomplishment had she ? No Italian, no French, 
no fancy work; she had not read a dozen of the 
novels of the day ; she was not a nineteenth century 
girl at all; sometimes she talked more like an old 
woman, than like a young one — and yet, she was 
admired; Griffin admired her; Mr. Giles did not 


186 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


seem to care for her at all; but ladies noticed her; 
the English lady, little Jean’s mother, told Mrs. 
Olmstead that ‘‘ Miss Rizpah Chevil was striking ! 

Florence stood at the bedside, thinking; the 
sleeping girl with loosened hair, and long braids 
thrown over the pillow, her small hands still 
pressed together, and her eyelids swollen with tears, 
did not stir; Florence looked at her, and thought 
how plain she was, how hard her life had been, 
how friendless she was now, homeless, as far as fa- 
ther and mother made a home ; a poor little lost 
baby with one old woman, her only friend. And 
she had almost hated her, she had let her utterly 
alone, and now by confessing her penitence she 
had hurt her beyond forgiveness. She had said it 
so sincerely ; she had meant it as the beginning of 
her “new self,” and it was what she should not 
have said ; even Bud would have known better than 
to put it that way ; Griffin would say it was like 
her, that she had no heart. 

When Rizpah stirred and opened her eyes, she 
saw the golden head, with the moonlight shining 
on it, pressed into the white coverlid at her side ; it 
was the first time she had seen Florence kneel to 
pray. 

She had slept without praying; her heart was 


IN THE MOONLIGHT. 


187 


too hard to speak to God; she could not ask for- 
giveness for the doings of her day, when she could 
not herself forgive this girl who had begged her 
forgiveness. 

Perhaps her heart had melted in her sleep ; God 
could touch it whether she were asleep or awake ; 
she did not forgive easily, but she had forgiven 
Florence, and with the sweet sense of forgiveness, 
came a new sense of being herself forgiven ; she 
thought God must be very happy in his own for- 
giveness. 

With the softest motion Florence arose and be- 
gan to unbind her hair ; the voices in the next room 
were silent, there was not a sound in the house. 
Guarded by the mountains, the hamlet slept. 

“ Blossom.’’ 

It was very sweet to be called Blossom just then, 
for the girl had been shedding homesick tears. 

“Will you forgive stretching out both 

arms to her. 

Then the two girls kissed each other. 

With their hearts open to each other they talked 
on far into the night ; in the morning they seemed 
to have known each other years. Kizpah told Mrs. 
Olmstead that she had found a little sister. 


XIX. 

ON THE HILLSIDE. 

The next morning Mrs. Olmstead and Eizpah 
were sewing in the summer-house ; in every direc- 
tion were the mountains ; many times had risen to 
Eizpah’s lips, words that Aunt Eizpah loved : “ I 
will look to the hills whence cometh my help.” 

“ Eizpah, you are silent this morning.” 

“Am I ? I am thinking so fast, that I thought 
I had been talking a long time. I was thinking 
just then that I am sure the Lord has chosen my 
life for me, for I never should have courage to 
choose it for myself ; it is as much as I can do to 
have courage to take it.” 

“ Is something now troubling you, dear ? ” 

“Yes,” was the very low reply. 

“ Something that I may not know? ” 

“I cannot tell — I dare not think of it myself — 
I suppose it will be all over some day.” 

“ Is it your own choosing ? ” 

( 188 ) 


ON THE HILLSIDE, 


189 


“ Oh, no ; it was not at first ; I think it is now ; 
it is too late for me to do anything.” 

“Is it too late for God to do anything ? ” 

“Can He undo the past?” asked Eizpah, 
solemnly. 

“ He can work good out of it ; he can make it 
even better because of the mistake.” 

“ I do not see how.” 

“ I do not know that yon have to see anything 
about it.” 

“ I do not ; it is all dark to me ; I am utterly 
miserable about it.” 

“I wish I could help you, dear.” 

“Nobody can help me,” said Rizpah, in weary 
hopelessness. 

“Perhaps some one who has lived, has gone 
through as hard a trial ; doesn^t it help you to 
know how Hannah was helped in the old times, 
even although her heartache was different from 
ours ? ” 

“ She lived so long ago ; people in the Old 
Testament lived so long ago ; they do not seem 
real to me ; everybody is far away out of my life 
this morning ; I feel as if no one ever lived who 
had a life like mine.” 

“ It does not need to be so in outward events ; 


190 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


God can make a new life every time he breathes 
the breath of life into a human being; not new to 
him, for he has thought of it.” 

Eizpah was listening, but her eyes were not 
lifted from her work; the sound of the sewing 
machine came from a near, open window ; several 
of the peasant women had come down from their 
mountain homes to see the English lady sew with 
her feet as well as her fingers. 

“ He thought of hard things for my life.’^ 

“ He thought of good for you to make out of it. 
He gives you every hard time to do something 
with; God’s hard time is man’s opportunity, to 
render the old proverb somewhat differently. 
When I read about the old times, I read, not to learn 
about them, but about God ; I love to see how he 
worked in human lives, and to know that he works 
in a like fashion to-day, with us, whose hearts are 
fashioned like theirs ; if our happenings are not 
precisely like theirs, they are enough alike for us 
to know that they are older children in his great 
family. God lived so long ago, but he is living 
now just the same; he is not far off, these moun- 
tains are as near to him as the mountains round 
about Jerusalem; what he said to his children then 
he will say to us, speak in our ear, as he did to 


ON THE HILLSIDE. 


191 


Samuel; what he did for them, he will jdo for us; 
if he were not the same now as then, there would 
be no comfort in him or in their story. I do not 
care so much that they were forgiven and helped 
and comforted, as I do that it is the God I serve and 
whose I am, who forgave them and helped them ; I 
do not so much rejoice that they had light on their 
dark way, as 1 do that it is my God that heard 
them and answered them. How long ago does it 
seem to God that he spoke in Samuefs ear ? Not 
longer ago than it seems to him since our prayer 
was answered yesterday.’^ 

“ I Icnow that; I do not feel it.^’ 

The women came smiling and talking out of the 
house, one of them leading a little child, and took 
their way up the mountain path; Blossom and 
Jean were out gathering flowers by the side of the 
brook; Giles and Griffin had started early on a 
long tramp. 

“ I feel that every change made in our lives, is 
for something, not only good for us, but better for 
us.” 

“But, Mrs. Olmstead, suppose we make the 
change ourselves ? 

“ Do you think God ever lets us so utterly alone 
as that ? It is one of my comforts that God worked 


192 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


through Pharaoh even with his hardened heart ; 
and how much more will he work through me 
with my softened heart? 

“But we are so blind, and do not know our- 
selves—” 

“ He is not blind, and he knows you.^’ 

Giles said once that his mother’s style had no 
finish except the finish of point ; she said she had 
lived through things until she came herself to 
every point she made. 

Mrs. Vanderveer had never had any experience; 
Mrs. 01m stead said that God had given her a great 
deal. 

“ I know a girl who has a sad story; it seems 
that it might have been helped, if somebody had 
understood; she was shy and not at all demonstra- 
tive ; she had small opportunities of making 
friends, but she found one friend whom she loved, 
a young man, rather older than herself, in every 
way admirable and fitted to make her happy ; but 
knowing how much she loved him, she became so 
constrained in his presence, so unlike the real 
loveliness and womanliness of herself, that he did 
not find her lovable ; he thought she must dislike 
him or she could not be so unsympathetic ; he had 
admired her at first, but was repelled as they^met 


ON THE HILLSIDE, 


193 


from time to time, and they had no good oppor- 
tunity of knowing each other ; and the saddest of 
it is, he married and is not happy, and she married 
some one who is not all congenial.’’ 

0 how dreadful ! ” was Kizpah’s quick exclama- 
tion; ‘‘ if somebody had only understood.” 

“ I think her mother might have understood, but 
Annie never confided in her ; she knew Annie was 
miserable, but never knew the cause till afterward.” 

“ I wish you had been her mother,” said Kizpah, 
impulsively. 

“Will you not let me be your mother ? ” 

“ You can^t. You can’t do anything.” 

“ I am all in the dark, dear.” 

“ That’s w'here I want you to be,” said Eizpah, 
with a quick laugh, “ nobody can help me ; I will 
not be helped — that way.” 

“I do not like to see you bent over that sewing; 
I wish you would run up the hill, and find a 
fiower to paint for me ; to-morrow will be my birth- 
day ; will you not paint something for me ? ” 

“ Will you care — really ?” she asked eagerly. “ I 
did not know I could do anything for you.” 

“I shall be forty-nine; my jubilee year begins. 
I want it to be a real jubilee.” 

On her way up the mountain alone, Eizpah found 
13 


194 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


some other things beside the flowers ; she found, or 
was certain she found, that her own shyness and 
consciousness were making her so unlike herself, 
so unlike the Eizpah of Aunt Kizpah’s garden, and 
sitting-room, so unlike the Eizpah who had read 
and studied with him, that Giles Olmstead was 
growing away from her ; how did she know that he 
cared now as he did that day he met her in Flor- 
ence ? He had seen her in a new character ; and 
had not flve years wrought changes ? He admired 
Florence, in their walks he was always at her side 
or his mother’s ; he left her entirely to the care of 
GriflSn; he never intruded himself upon her; he 
had never taken the right she had given him, 
when she pledged herself to be his “ friend.’’ He 
did not care even for so little a thing from 
her as her friendship. But the flowers were 
found at last and painted that afternoon. They 
were miserable things, and she was ashamed of 
them ; but Florence raved over them, and said 
she dared not breathe for fear of blowing them 
away. 

“I suppose I can press flowers to send home,’’ 
she said. 

‘‘Would you like to paint them?” Eizpah asked. 

“I am too stupid,” Florence returned with a dis- 


ON THE HILLSIDE. 


195 


contented laugh. ‘‘ Griffin says I am not willing 
to take pains enough.^^ 

“ If you will take pains, let me teach you; I had 
a fine teacher; she spent weeks with us one sum- 
mer, and taught me every day."' 

“ Oh, will you? I was ashamed to ask.” 

Giving is forgiving; she began to love Flor- 
ence anew during the first hour of her paint- 
ing lesson. 

“ Mr. Giles laughs at me,” said Florence. “ I’ll 
paint him a book mark to punish him; he will not 
dare not to use it ; I’ll put it in the book he is study- 
ing.” 

Eizpah hated herself because she chose some- 
thing difficult for the book-mark ; it was a wretched 
daub, and Griffin declared it would give Giles the 
nightmare. 

“ I don’t care,” said Florence, with her pretty 
laugh, “ it will remind him of me.” 

“ You must try again to-morrow,” encouraged 
Eizpah; “that is too hard for you; I’ll find some- 
thing easy and pretty that he will like.” 

And then she hated herself for being proud of 
herself. 

That same day while Griffin and Giles with their 
alpen-stocks were climbing the mountains Griffin 


196 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


paused, and leaning on his stick burst out; “I say, 
old fellow, do you know that girl likes you ? 

“ Which girl ? ” questioned his companion, with 
the utmost coolness. 

“The one you despaired of; the one that is a 
fortune to get.’’ 

“ How do you know ? ” 

“ Because I have a grain of sense.” 

“It misleads you this time; she loves the past, 
and I am the only living part of it ; I remind her 
of many things ; she loves me as she would love 
anything of Aunt Eizpah’s; the old tabby that 
used to nestle on Aunt Eizpah’s bed would be as 
dear to her as I am ; her love is too good a thing to 
be taken that way ; if I can’t have what I want as 
I want it, I am richer without it.” 

Griffin regarded him in absolute silence, then he 
broke out with a prolonged exclamation; “ I be- 
lieve I would rather be a fool than to be as wise 
as some folks ; your heart gets so lost in your 
brain that you can reason yourself into anything ; 
if that is the door for the love to come through, 
why not take it and be glad of it ? You are not 
half good enough for her with your cold-blooded 
reasoning.” 

“ I am not — anyway,’’ said Giles. 


ON THE HILLSIDE, 


197 


You reason the heart out of everything; you 
spend half your time in picking yourself to pieces, 
and the other half in picking her to pieces. I 
won’t stand it any longer ; I am going into 
Germany, you can do as you like.” 


XX. 


KmjS^ET. 

With her alpen-stock and her basket for flowers, 
Eizpah started out alone ; in the morning sunlight 
there was a bewildering beauty about Chateau 
d’Oex; at home the old house was back from the 
road, a meadow skirted by trees w^as the view 
from the kitchen doorstep ; from Aunt Eizpah^s 
windows fronting the road, with the grass grown 
yard between, she saw, summer and winter, an 
un painted farm-house with its rickety barns, a 
roof or two beyond it, bare fields or harvest fields 
as the season was, trees and sky; the sunshine, 
the sky, the green fields she had always had in 
summer, but beauty like this, ^he had seen only in 
her dreams of other lands. 

She passed down the flight of steps outside and 
through the garden out into the wide green ; 
through the gate in the rustic fence, she went out 

into the road ; a woman balancing a basket on her 
( 198 ) 


KIN NET, 


199 


head was stepping on before her, she turned into 
the ascending path and went on past the brown 
chalets and np past the Free Church to the narrow 
way into the mountain. How she would love to 
build a chalet up here and hide herself to read and 
paint, and find new fiowers, and forget all the 
vexing things that happen to people down in the 
valley! Down the steps of the chalet ahead came 
the old lady who sat in front of them in church, 
arrayed in the same linsey-woolsey dress and broad 
black hat ; she bobbed her head and spoke pleas- 
antly. Kizpah smiled and essayed her small stock 
of French. A look in her dark eyes reminded her 
of the dark eyes she had known all her life ; she 
wished she might kiss the old face for the sake of 
the other face that she would never see again. 

‘‘ Miss Kizpah,” called a voice behind her, and 
Giles Olmstead stepped to her side. 

“ You passed me just now; I came out early to 
talk to the old pastor before he begins his day’s 
work; may I share your business or your pleas- 
ure ? ” 

“My only business is my pleasure; 1 started 
out for fiowers.” 

“ You love fiowers like a Swiss girl.’’ 

“ Aunt Kizpah did, you remember. Have you 


200 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


noticed that old lady with the soft brown in her 
eyes ? Does she remind you of Aunt Eizpah ? 

‘‘No; I had not traced any resemblance.’’ 

“ I saw it, as she stopped to speak to me. I 
want to go and see her. I love anything or any- 
body that reminds me of her.’^ 

“ What would Griffin say to this ? ” thought Grif- 
fin’s friend. 

“Your life must not end with hers,” he began, 
impatiently. “ There is something else for you.” 

“ I suppose so, but it does not come easily.” 

“You are one of the tenacious kind; can you 
not let go and cling to some new thing ? ” 

“ What new thing is worth it ? ” 

“ Would you like to bury yourself because she 
is buried 

“ I would like to find something like her.^^ 

“ There is enough ; your sorrow, your clinging 
to the old things is wicked and unreasonable ; it 
keeps you from what naturally may come into 
your life.” 

“ My life is not like other lives.” 

“ It may be in all that is worth having.” 

“ Perhaps I do not know what is worth having. 
Something came to me in the night ; I want to 
build a memorial to her ; I will not use her money 


KINNET. 


201 


selfishly. I have no nse for money beyond my 
daily wants ; I do not know what money is^ I 
believe ; onr housekeeper did all our trading and 
shopping ; I never spent five dollars for myself till 
I began to fix myself to go to Florence with Mr. 
Chevil ; my fortune seems a great deal too much 
for me, I wish it to honor her. I think I would 
love dress if I were where dress was. Florence 
says I would, but that love is belittling ; I can buy 
other beautiful things beside dress. And dress 
will never make me beautiful.” 

^ “ Your dress is simple and tasteful ; it makes 

you different from what you used to be,” he re- 
turned, remembering the maiden of five years ago, 
in her dark gingham with scanty skirts. 

“Oh, you remember my old things,” with a 
laugh, “ so do I, and I am ashamed of how I used 
to look.” 

“You were always neat.” 

“ Neat ! But I wish to be tastefully and becom- 
ingly dressed. The flowers are.” 

“ You are — now.^^ 

She looked down at her short gray dress and 
thick boots ; her broad Chateau d’ Oex hat, was 
not unbecoming, she knew. 

“ She would like to see me now ; shb would be 


202 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE,' 


glad , of all the pretty things I have. I want to 
tell you something that I haven’t told any one. 
Mr. Snowdon has written me about a settlement 
near where he lives; you have surely heard of 
Kinnet ; it is not a village, it has not even a 
chapel, only a short intermittent service is held 
in the school-house ; the children go there to 
Sunday-school, and the people who go to church 
have to go three miles. There is but one church- 
member in the place, an old woman. It has enter- 
ed his head to build a church there. But he has 
not much money. Now I want to build the 
church for a memorial of Aunt Eizpah ! And a 
parsonage ! Do you not think I can do it ? ” 

“ You car?, certainly.” 

‘‘ It will not take all her money — I never can 
think of it as mine. In a paper he sent me I read 
about a parsonage being built in memorial of a 
lady by her sister, and it gave me the idea; I can 
do both.” 

“What do you expect to live on ? ” 

“ The farm ! There are one hundred acres. A 
girl is not poor who owns a farm like that; some 
of our neighbors support a family on a smaller one. 
You mistake me if you think I wish to be rich. I 
should hav^ nothing but for her; I wish to do this 


KIJSTNET, 


203 


in memory of what she did for me. Griffin would 
want me to do it out west, but this place is within 
twenty miles of the church-yard where she is 
buried, and I want it to be near her grave. Is it 
not the best monument I can build ? ” 

“You are right in that. It seems heathenish to 
me to build costly monuments over a grave.” 

“There is no stone even, at her grave; I could 
not decide before I came away; it was in my head 
to have a splendid monument; a plain one costs 
five hundred dollars; I inquired about it. I w’ant 
hers to be thousands instead of hundreds. I want 
it to be a living memorial.” 

“ And you are willing to be poor for the sake 
ofit?” 

“ I shall not be poor ; I do not^ know how to be 
rich. Aunt Eizpah did not live like a rich 
woman ; she taught me to love a plain home and 
plain fare; my tastes are very simple.” 

“You have a right to do it, certainly.” 

“ There is no one to dispute my right. She will 
be glad if she can look down and know about it; 
if she cannot I will tell her about it when I see 
her again. If she had willed part of her money to 
be spent that way, and not have left it all to me, 
would you have pitied me and called me poor ? ” 


204 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


she asked, spiritedly, standing still, and lifting her 
burning eyes to his face. “ I had no right to any 
of it. It was of her goodness she gave it to me.^^ 
“No; I should iStve considered you amply 
provided for.” 

“ And now I am more than amply provided for. 
Mr. Snowdon is enthusiastic about the new 
project — he will not object. I am of age, the 
money is mine. Do you object ? ” 

“ I have no right to object,” he said, flushing 
uncomfortably. Was she so far away from him 
that she did not remember that he had asked for 
the right to ‘ object ' ? ” 

“ Would you, if you had a right ? ” 

In her earnestness had she forgotten in what 
his “right” might consist. She was his “ friend ” 
only, as she had written. 

“ I hope I should not; Eizpah, you are a noble, 
grateful, unselfish woman ! ” 

“ After all she has done for me ! Do not say 
that. I had thought of a house for orphan girls, 
only girls who had no mother, and there was no 
Aunt Eizpah to take them in; but I like this 
better; how glad that old Avoman will be to have a 
church of her own ! He says five thousand will 
build a handsome little church; he sent me the 


KINNET, 


205 


picture of it. I will show it to you. It’s very 
pretty; prettier than our church at home; the 
dimensions are forty-four feet by sixty-six, and the 
pulpit across is five feet more; the walls are 
sixteen feet, it is twenty-seven feet high in the 
middle with exposed ornamental rafters and ceil- 
ing of ornamental wood work instead of plaster. 
Don’t you like that ? The audience room can have 
two hundred and forty seats and the lecture room 
eighty; the lecture room can be Sunday-school 
room as well; in our church we have Sunday- 
school in the church. But I never liked that.- 
Aunt Eizpah did not like it either. She said once 
she would love to build a church, and she spoke par- 
ticularly of a Sunday-school room. How she would 
love to see it ! He sent me a picture of a parson- 
age, too. Fifteen hundred or two thousand will 
build that. It's very pretty, too, with a bay win- 
dow and a piazza.” 

“Do you expect to buy the land?” There was 
something provoking about the tone that she was 
half inclined to resent ; what was it to him ? 
Was it his money that she was giving away? 

“ The land is already donated, seven acres, with 
apple trees on it, and a spring, in a pleasant site 
and very healthful. I’m crazy to see it all com- 


206 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


pleted, and a minister and his wife and two little 
girls at home in it. There must be closets and a 
well-lighted kitchen, and such a pleasant sleeping- 
room for the children. He will be a home mis- 
sionary, I suppose, if the people cannot afford to 
support him.’* 

The enthusiastic, eager voice, the rapid tones, 
the gestures, the light in her eyes were like the 
old times when they were together in Aunt Eiz- 
pah’s room, reading aloud, or talking. It was the 
first time she had wholly forgotten herself with 
him. 

“ You do not seem to care,” she said, disappoint- 
edly. “I have counted on telling you.” 

“I do care,” he answered, hurriedly; “it is a 
grand idea. But I am slow and cautious, I am 
not quick, like you ; I do not think quickly or act 
quickly ; perhaps I do not take an idea quickly ; 
but the more I think of it the more I am not 
opposed to it ! It is new to me, altogether new, 
and you have been thinking of it for some time. 
I heartily approve it ; I was surprised at first. 
You know it takes me some time to take in any- 
thing new, and when it is once in it stays, and I 
never let it go.” 

“ I hope this is tn, then,” she said, eagerly. 


KINNET, 


207 


“But you are a dangerous person to get some 
ideas.” 

“ I am.” 

After a pause and some fidgetting with her basket 
— he had taken her alpen-stock, she said, abruptly : 
“I wish ideas, purposes, stayed with me, so.^^ 

“I think they do,” he said, sharply; “you are 
hardest to change of any person I know.” 

“ Do you mean that I am self-satisfied ? ” 

“ I mean if one idea takes possession of you, 
there it stays and routs all others. Did you say 
you had told Griffin of your purpose ? ” 

“0 no, no one beside you. I shall write to 
Mr. Snowdon to-day. He says the place is grow- 
ing, that three handsome summer residences have 
been put up there within a year. I wish you 
were a minister ; I would love to have you preach 
in Aunt Eizpah’s church.” 

“ Can you not think of me apart from her ? ” he 
asked, impatiently. 

“ Why should I ?” she asked, surprised. 

“ If you do not know, I cannot tell you,” with 
curt brevity. ^ 

“ I shall need my stick soon. Where is yours ? 
Shall we go on and up ? I had forgotten about 
my flowers. ’’ 


208 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ And breakfast ! Kinnet is an earthly paradise, 
and its lovers must eat breakfast, dinner, and sup- 
per.” 

‘‘ Oh, we must be back at breakfast time; your 
mother was writing and I did not speak as I 
passed through the sitting-room. I am very glad 
you approve; I feel surer now that I am right; I 
can tell her that you thought so, too. She shall 
have a simple head-stone in the churchyard, and 
this memorial at Kinnet.” 

They turned and went down the narrow path, 
she swinging her small basket and he with the 
alpen-stock. 

Giles 01m stead had the grace to be ashamed of 
the suggestion that flashed through his mind: 
“If I marry this girl I must do it before she 
throws all her money away.’^ 

He loved money, he loved himself, he loved his 
own way; Horace Snowdon said of him once: “ I 
do not know another man whose words are in such 
direct contradiction to his motives as this young 
Giles Olmstead ! He is two men, and the outside 
man is much the better man.” 


XXL 


A MOOD. 

Griffin allured them out to the brook after 
breakfast, bringing Eizpah’s painting box and 
Mrs. Olmstead’s work basket. Florence followed 
with her embroidery and Giles brought his books. 

“ It is our last conference for some time,” an- 
nounced Griffin, “ we are going tramping off into 
Germany ; Giles will be another Oliver Goldsmith, 
and come home and write a poem, and I shall be a 
vagabond, as usual. Kizpah, I will trust you to 
send my letters.” 

He seated himself on the grass at Rizpah’s right 
hand, watching her at work, and making comical 
suggestions ; after awhile he relapsed into one of 
his frequent fits of silence, his knees drawn up 
clasped by both hands, his hat pushed back and his 
chin resting moodily upon his knees ; he had been 
in a “ mood ” all the morning; Giles was provoked 

with him, and Florence openly declared that she 
14 ( 209 ) 


210 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


was “ almost tired” of him; Mrs. Olmstead let him 
alone, Eizpah patted his head and smiled at him 
once in a while, as if he were a huge Newfound- 
land out of sorts. In the talk she had at Eome 
with him about his mother, she told him that he 
was as faithful as a dog, as loving as a child, as 
uncertain as the wind and as spoiled as a baby. 
A reproachful letter from his mother, filled with 
dashed passages, incoherent complaints, interjec- 
tions and extravagant adjectives had ‘‘worked” 
him “ all up,” he told Giles, reading a page or two 
of the seven sheets to him. He said to himself 
that he had not one spark of love left for her, or 
for himself, or for anybody ; what was the good of 
his youth, his health, his independence, if he had 
to be bothered to death every time the mail came 
in? 

The trouble this time was about those two little 
orphan girls ; he had proposed that she should 
make a home for them instead of sending them to 
boarding-school : “ Let them know something 

about a mother and a home, it pays to make good 
women out of girls.” 

“ Are you crazy ? ” she asked, “ bereft of sense 
and reason ? ” 

Perhaps he had been, he thought, now that he 


A MOOD. 


211 


must have been, but Mrs. Olmstead, and Eizpah, 
and Florence loving that small Jean, had made 
him forget that all women do not love girls, and 
especially motherless and fatherless girls. 

Did he not know that she could not get along 
with girls, sbe had never admired any girls beside 
the Chevils, and they were pretty and ladylike, 
but these girls had been sent from India, and had 
no training except that given by their ayahs ; they 
could not even speak English decently, they were 
plain, and silent, and sullen, and did not respond 
to any of her overtures ; they clung to each other 
and worshiped their uncle, and that she would not 
stand; he spent half his time with them now, and 
was making them an objection to his marriage. 
And he objected to using her money; he would be 
objecting to her next, and all because Griffin was 
interfering with his plans and his advice; they 
were fully able and capable of taking care of them- 
selves and those hindering girls. 

He supposed he thought himself generous 
and prided himself upon giving her the money, 
but it was no more than a filial and affec- 
tionate son should do, and people did think 
his father was not himself when he made his 
will. She would not have the girls in her house, 


212 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


and it was to be her house, she hoped he under- 
stood. 

But Mrs. Olmstead was talking to the girls ; he 
liked to listen when she talked to them ; boys 
were not so different after all; only ruder and 
rougher, with more to be brought out and finished. 
David’s Psalms might have come out of the 
heart of a woman — the ones he read oftenest. 

It was queer to jerk himself back from rapid, 
fretted utterances, to the calmness and brightness 
of Mrs, 01m stead’s voice. He could imagine the 
letter she would write to Giles under the same 
circumstances. 

‘‘Your young time is the time to make friends; 
your hearts are readiest now; two girls melt into 
each other in one good, long, confidential talk, 
where, later, the intercourse of years would be a 
cool sort of friendliness ; young time is the time to 
make friends, as spring-time is the time to sow 
seed. * I pity the woman who has not in her age 
some friends of her youth. Get ready for that 
time, girls.” 

Florence gave Eizpah a glance, and both smiled ; 
would they ever forget that night, when too 
earnest, and eager, and excited to sleep, they had 
lain awake in the moonlight to talk ? Eizpah had 


A MOOD, 


213 


told the sweet and happy story of her years of 
nursing Aunt Eizpah, how Aunt Eizpah had said 
she was losing all the good times girls had, in 
taking care of a fussy old woman, and had tried 
to persuade her to go off to boarding-school and 
let a nurse from the city come and take her place, 
and how she had cried and Aunt Eizpah had cried 
at the very thought of it ; and then the story of 
her studying and painting and trying to educate 
herself, touching with lightest touches upon Giles 
Olmstead and his year of tutorship, and then the 
days after she was left alone in the old house with 
the housekeeper, how she wandered around and 
tried to read and paint and could satisfy herself 
with nothing, and would awake nights, putting 
out her hand to touch a hand that was not there, 
or start up suddenly to ask: “ Aunt Eizpah, can 1 
do something for you ? 

Florence had her own long story to tell of home 
days and school days and travel, and last of all 
that winter with Griffin before Eizpah came. 

The artless revelation of herself was very 
touching to her listener; how could she help 
loving Griffin ? He was so different from herself, 
and she had never had a brother, and did not 
care for her noisy cousins as Budget did; and 


214 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


Griffin was so like a girl in his sympathies and 
yet so manly, and he saw so quickly what was 
true, and was never afraid to speak, and he was 
so humble about himself and not ashamed that he 
was trying to be good, and underneath his nonsense 
he was always thinking. Her father said he had 
the air of a spoiled child and of a prince who had 
but to speak to be obeyed ; but that was because 
he had never been governed but petted and 
fretted at. 

Eizpah listened, feeling that ‘‘ Miss Chevil ’’ was 
such a helpless, babyish little creature, after all, 
and it was Eizpah’s very nature to love helpless- 
ness ; she loved Griffin best when he was weakest. 

‘‘ Women are queer, contradictory creatures,” 
muttered Griffin, with his chin still on his knees. 
“ I should think, not knowing anything about it, 
that being in love — as they call it — would make a 
woman — or a man — loving toward everybody ; but 
I believe it don’t ; I believe it makes selfishness, 
and therefore I devoutly hope I shall never be 
in love.” 

“You use the word in its narrow and narrowing 
sense,” said Giles. 

“ That’s the way people live it,” was the gruff 
reply. “ What a lot of vexations may run along 


A MOOD. 


215 


in the undercurrent of people’s lives ! I shall 
write poetry if I stay in this mood much longer, 
and I don’t feel like writing poetry to my mother. 
I can’t stand this sort of lazy existence any longer. 
I shall marry my mother off and go back to 
America and go to work at something. That’s 
decided'" 

Dropping his hands he sprang up, caught Eiz- 
pah by the shoulder, pulled her backward and scat- 
tered brushes, flowers and pencils on the grass. 

“ Youth is for a lot of things and I’m going to 
do them.” 

“ You are such a boy,” cried Eizpah, impatient- 
ly, “ you have spoiled that new flower.” 

“ I wish you cared for me as much as you do for 
the flower.” 

“ I will when you are as rare.” 

“I’ll be rare enough for the next month. I’ll 
take Giles to England with me. You lady folks 
have got to stay here in exile all July and August.” 

The next day the “lady folks” were left alone; 
Eizpah welcomed the “ exile ” and planned work 
and reading for the two months. Florence 
planned w^alks and letters, and Mrs. Olmstead 
prayed that her jubilee year might bring a blessing 
to these dear girls. 


216 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


A sorrowful look that neither of the girls could 
understand often flitted across the peace of Mrs. 
Olmstead’s eyes; the sorrow had no words except- 
ing in her prayers : “ Lord, I am disappointed in 
my son, my only son. He is fair to look upon and 
fair in speech, but in the temple of his heart, is set 
up the idol of himself.” 


XXIL 


GEOWING. 

“We are not on any street or road, but up a 
path that a carriage cannot pass ; only foot passen- 
gers come our way, we are cuddled in a slope of 
the mountain, with the brook for company and 
each other, when we feel like talking; as cozy as 
two little birds tucked into a nest, with a darling 
mother bird. Every day I am more glad that I 
stayed,” wrote Florence to Emily, the first day of 
July, “and nobody seems very sorry to have me.” 

Letters were the one excitement of the day; Giles 
and Griffin wrote every day ; Griffin wrote to both 
the girls, singly or together, Giles wrote to his 
mother, little bits of travel, comical descriptions of 
people and places, quotations from long conversa- 
tions with Griffin, interspersed with a sage reflect- 
tion upon life and the habits and haunts of men, 
which were read aloud by the light of the evening 

lamp. Florence had letters from the girls and her 

( 217 ) 


218 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


father and mother; beside a business letter from 
Mr. Snowdon and a labored epistle from her house- 
keeper, Eizpah had no word from home. It al- 
most seemed that “ home ” to her might be on 
either side of the water. 

They all looked forward to the evening’s work 
and conversation ; then the day’s* letters were re- 
read and talked over afresh, and then any little 
question of the day .was brought out and answered 
by Mrs. Olmstead’s longer and clearer experience 
of the puzzles of a girl’s life. It was a new kind 
of school to both girls. Florence asked questions 
as simply and eagerly as a small child; she said 
she had lived nineteen years without thinking; 
she had been so happy, having everything she 
wanted, that she had not had time to think. 

“ I believe it is good not to have something we 
want,” she said one evening, it makes a new girl 
out of me.” 

“ Now, Blossom,” cried Eizpah, teasingly, ‘‘ do 
you want another set of diamonds, or a carriage 
and span to ride up the mountains ? ” 

“ There is something in me besides such things,” 
said Florence, “my life isn’t all outside of me, like 
life in some story books.” 

“Nor all inside I hope,” warned Mrs. Olmstead. 


GROWING, 


219 


“ I don^t like to see girls live too much inside of 
themselves; some physical ills are cured by rub- 
bing and bathing, and a mustard plaster; I be- 
lieve in outside things to cure inside ills ; and don’t 
think of the inside ill, but put your mind and heart 
as you do your hands into the rubbing ; the think- 
ing that comes when the hands are busied is a good 
healthy kind of thinking, and the prayers that are 
pra-yed then are apt to be a healthy energetic kind. 
Nothing irritates me like seeing a girl sit with idle 
hands and far-away eyes and a no-expression about 
her lips. I want to shake her, and put her to 
a work that shall take such contemplative moods 
out of her. Girls are not wise enough to think 
very deeply — what they call depth — without get- 
ting morbid; and I don’t like to have a girl think 
thoughts she cannot or will not talk about to 
some wise person who has travelled through the 
journey of girlhood, or, to some one going over the 
same way ; I’ve had such girls under my care, and 
they were hard to manage. All the mysteries of 
life, all the deep questions of theology are not to 
be solved by a girl of seventeen, or even twenty. 
To be a thoughtful girl is not always to be the 
nicest or happiest girl ; it depends entirely upon 
what girls think about.” 


220 


RIZFAWS HERITAGE. 


“You know what we think about,” said Bizpah. 

“ I know what you talk about.” 

“ IVe been thinking to-day about unconscious 
influence,” returned Eizpah, staying her needle. “ I 
believe I have been more influenced by people 
who didn’t know it, than in any other way ; I 
mean by something about them they have not 
thought about. I remember once — in church, I 
couldn’t help it, the thought came like a flash — 
deciding to keep myself specially nice about the 
neck, because the minister’s white tie and collar 
were so spotless, and impressed me with the fit- 
ness of neatness. 

“ I’ve noticed that about you,” said Florence. 
“You are never stained or rumpled about the 
neck ; you look as fresh at night as in the 
morning.” 

“ What else ? I’m interested,” said Mrs. Olmstead. 

“ Finger-nails ! My painting-teacher had per- 
fectly cared-for nails ; I never heard her speak of 
them or saw her fuss over them, but they have 
influenced me to care for mine.” 

“ I’ve seen you look at your nails the first thing 
in the morning,” declared Florence, “ and I didn’t 
wonder, they were so pretty.” 

“ It has taken constant care to do it.” 


GROWING, 


221 


“ What else ? questioned Florence in her turn. 

“ Our housekeeper’s voice ! She is only the 
plainest kind of a woman, but the first sound of 
her voice in the morning was inspiriting ; there 
wasn^t a bit of a weak, cross, morning feeling in it ; 
and I knew it did not come naturally, for she had 
sleepless nights and troubles to bear, and I 
thought if she could do that, I could.” 

“ What else ? ” asked Florence, again. 

“Aunt Eizpah’s reading the Bible the first thing 
in the morning; she never told me that I must, 
she never told me that I must read the Bible at 
all ; but I saw her, from my earliest recollection, 
go to her corner where her books and work were, 
and sit down and open her Bible, and then she 
would get up briskly and go about her work.” 

“ And that is why you do it so regularly ? ” 

“ She gave me a Bible as soon as I could read, 
and when she sat down to read, then I sat down 
to read. Somebody said I was a little old woman, 
and I suppose I was; 1 suppose I am now.” 

“ It’s getting rubbed off,” said Florence, frankly. 

“It couldn’t but be among you girls. And 
then some one’s writing has influenced me; I never 
take up my pen that I am not influenced to do my 
best.” 


222 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“That influence was all unconscious, surely,” 
said Mrs. Olmstead ; “we would be startled and 
grieved and ashamed if we could understand our 
unconscious influences.” 

“We have to think about everything and be 
careful about everything, then,” reflected Florence; 
“ oh, I wonder if I have made the girls difierent 
from what they would have been had I been dif- 
ferent. Oh, I do want to be different ! ” 

“ You are,” said Mrs. Olmstead, encouragingly. 

“No, I’m not,” confessed the girl; “when those 
peasant women looked at me to-day and smiled, 1 
thought they were thinking how pretty I am. 
You see,” covering her face in confusion, “ that the 
vanity will always stay in me.” 

“Would you like to have your face changed 
asked Eizpah. 

“ I’d like to have my heart changed,” she cried, 
impetuously. “ I don’t like to despise myself so.” 

“ I suppose they smile at the flowers, too,” said 
Eizpah, “ they love flowers better than you and I 
ever thought of doing.” 

“ I think God meant something very sweet for 
you when he gave you a sweet face, dear,” said 
Mrs. Olmstead, comfortingly, as the sweet, 
ashamed face kept itself hidden. 


GROWING, 


223 


“ I don’t know what,’^ in a muffled voice. 

“ That if it should draw people to you, it should 
draw them to a sweet nature and a pure heart ; if 
he so clothes your face, will he not much more 
clothe your heart ? He loves your heart and your 
soul, you^ better than he loves the beautiful house 
he has given you to dwell in for a little while; 
you will not grieve his love and care by thinking 
more of that house than of the being who dwells 
within it ; he desires the purest heart to look out 
of those beautiful blue windows ! If your mother 
should come to us, would she stand without and 
admire this brown chMet rather than her child 
within it ? You are God’s child, within the house 
he has made for you. He chooses the house for 
each one of us, and w^e should honor it as his 
building, and keep it in the best possible repair 
for his sake, and that his child should thrive in it. 
We are not our own; your face is not your own — ” 

Florence lifted her face, moist with the falling 
tears: “If I could only remember that. It is so 
beautiful to think of it that way ; I must go home 
and tell Bud before she is spoiled with what peo- 
ple say to her.” 

“Your beauty is a gift — a talent, as Eizpah’s 
painting is ; it came from God, and the use of it is 


224 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


his right; when people love you let them love 
everything that is sweet and full of grace in you, 
and they will forget your beauty as they forget 
the ugliness of another.” 

“Yes,” said Eizpah, seriously, “Griffin says 
people forget I am ugly after seeing me two 
or three times; I'm always glad when the two 
or three times are over ; Mrs. Olmstead, you 
meant all that for me, too; I have never taken 
the house I live in from him.” 

“That house is a great deal to girls, and yet 
not half as much as they unwisely believe,*" a beau- 
tiful face never keeps the love, and the expression 
is what makes or mars the beauty; Florence, I’ve 
seen Bee look much more beautiful than I have 
seen you.” 

“ Have you ? ” asked Florence, doubtfully^ 
“ when ? ” 

“ When she was building her air-castle for Grif- 
fin.” 

“ I remember,” said Eizpah. 

There were so many things to remember about 
that day that Florence had forgotten Bee’s air-castle. 

“ The beauty of beauty is unconsciousness. 
When little Jean sat at the supper table to-night, 
her head thrown back, her lips parted, smiling at 


GROWING. 


225 


us, and showing her pretty teeth and her curls 
getting tangled in the back of her chair, what a 
picture she was! Had she been thinking how 
pretty she was and that we were smiling at her 
beauty, wouldn’t it be spoiled for us ? Spoiled 
beauty is a very distasteful thing.” 

“ Y ou make me so ashamed , groaned Blossom ; 
“but I’m glad I told you; I will be different, if it 
hurts all the way through.” 

“ That will of yours is on the side of God’s will 
— and you can pray for it to be done.” 

Florence thought Mrs. 01m stead did not know 
how sweet prayer was becoming to her ; when at 
home she could speak to her mother and be heard 
that same instant; but God was nearer than her 
mother at her nearest. 

“Mrs. Olmstead,” said Eizpah, “ Cornelius was 
praying when the angel came to him ; wouldn’t it 
be interesting for us to find out and tell each other 
what happened to people when they were pray- 
ing?” 

“ Delightful I ” exclaimed Mrs. Olmstead; “ what 
can you think of now? I remember that while 
Hannah spoke in her heart, only her lips moved 
and her voice was not heard ; the priest Eli spoke 

to her and promised her the answer to her prayer; 

15 


220 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


the word of the Lord was precious in those days, 
there was no open vision; but that must have been 
an open vision to her, the voice of God speaking 
with a man^s voice.” 

“ I shouldn’t think she would have believed 
him,” objected Florence. 

“She did; she went her way and did eat, and 
her countenance was no more sad. It was the 
voice of God’s priest that spoke to her.^^ 

“That reminds me of how sorry I was for 
Hypatia when she wanted to hear the voice of the 
gods,” said Eizpah, “ that is the one part of the 
book that helped me. I knew the waiting and 
praying of a hundred years would not bring the 
voice of the gods to her ; and she lived after Christ 
came, and did not believe in him. Our Voice is so 
near to us.” 

“How near asked Florence. 

“As near as this,” replied Eizpah, reaching to 
the table for Mrs. Olmstead’s Bible. “ I read it 
this morning while you were dressing.” 

She found the place and read with an apprecia- 
tion as real as if she were reading aloud from 
Griffin’s letter : 

“ ‘ For this commandment which I command 
thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is 


GROWING, 


227 


it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest 
say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring 
it down unto us, that we may hear it and do it ? 
Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest 
say: Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring 
it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it ? But 
the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and 
in thy heart,, that thou mayest do it.^^ 

“ That is nearer than anything outside of you, 
Florence,^^ said Mrs. Olmstead. 

“ But I haven’t done all I know.’’ 

‘‘You are beginning to,” encouraged Eizpah, in 
something the same tone she would have spoken 
to little Jean. 

“And he which hath begun a good work in you 
will perform it, dear,” promised Mrs. Olmstead, 
“it is his work in you, not your work in yourself; 
let him do all his will in you, don’t hinder by 
disobedience and unbelief.” 

This voice to Florence was like the voice of Eli 
to Hannah ; she believed it. 

“ I go to sleep at night having learned so many 
new things,” she answered, brightly, “and I write 
them all home to Budget ; oh, I do wish she had 
stayed too. It is all so new to us ; we never have 
books with such things in, and Pater never was 


228 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


willing for ns to go to Sunday-school, where 1 
suppose the teachers teach as you talk.” 

Eizpah had a blank book in her lap that Aunt 
Eizpah had used as a scrap-book ; the last scrap 
she had pasted in was one that Eizpah had read 
for the first time that day ; she had packed it in 
her trunk to read on the steamer, but had been too 
homesick to open it. 

“ It is my turn to read to-night, and I’ll read 
something Aunt Eizpah thought worth saving. 
She pasted this in one rainy day ; I remember be- 
cause I cut it out for her, and did not do it neatly 
enough to please her.” 

She remembered that her hands were careless 
that day, because she had a letter from Giles 01m- 
stead in her pocket that she must answer that 
night ; she had written by the light of the night- 
lamp and burned his letter afterward, devoutly 
hoping that he would consider this reply final. 
And now that he did consider her last reply, 
“ final,” was she altogether satisfied ? “I wish I 
understood myself,” she thought, with her eyes 
fastened on the cover of the scrap book. 

“ Don’t stare at it with big eyes ; read it,” 
laughed Florence. 

She read it, but she had lost her interest in it ; 


GROWING, 


229 


the others listened intently : ‘‘ ‘ Almost imper- 
ceptibly, creatures in the sea built in the Indian 
Ocean a goblet. It is called Neptune^s Cup. 
Sometimes it has a height of six feet and a breadth 
of three. It is erected solely by myriads of polypi ; 
fragile animals, shrunk within their holes, and 
only half issuing in order to plunge their micro- 
scopically small arms into the waves. One of 
these creatures, struggling to keep its position on 
some reef, made, perhaps, by the graves of its 
predecessors, begins to build without any consul- 
tation with its swarming mates. 

“ They all build, and they fashion little by little 
the base of the goblet. They then carry up the 
long, slender stem. They have no consultation 
with each other in their homes there under the seas. 

“Each works in a separate cell; each is as much 
cut off from communication with every other as 
an inmate of a cell in the wards of Charlestown 
prison is from his associates. 

“ They build the stem to the proper height, and 
then they begin to widen it. They enlarge it and 
commence the construction of the sides of the cup. 
They have no communication with each other. 
They build up the sides, leaving a hollow within. 

“ Everything proceeds according to a plan. 


230 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ You have first the pedestal, then the stem, then 
the widened flange of the goblet, then the hollow 
within looking up to heaven. 

‘‘The savage passes and gazes on Neptune’s 
Cup in the Indian Ocean, and is struck with rever- 
ence. He says in his secret thought : These crea- 
tures cannot speak with each other, but they act on 
a plan as if they were all in a conspiracy to pro- 
duce just this Neptune's Cup. 

“ Is the plan theirs, or does it belong to a power 
above them ? 

“Your poor savage there on the foaming coast of 
the tropics looks up to the same sky into which 
the cup gazes and finds the Author of the form of 
that Neptune’s goblet in a power not of them, but 
in the creatures which built it. It is in them, but 
not of them, for they have no intellect which can 
conceive what the goblet is ; but in isolation from 
each other, so they build their cells that they pro- 
duce, at last, a structure, having a plan held in 
view, not only apparently, but in fact from the 
very first.’” 

Pricking the velvet with the point of her needle, 
Florence sat thinking; was that the way God was 
bnilding her up, and she was helping as he moved 
her to build herself— to build herself into unselfish- 


GI^ GIVING. 


231 


ness and right thinking about all the good things 
he had given her ? 

A beautiful character would lead people to look up 
more than the Neptune’s Cup caused the savage to 
look up and think that One must have had the 
plan, and moved the tiny creatures to work. 

Two months ago, Florence would not have cared 
to listen to such reading as this; one month ago, 
this thought concerning herself could not have 
grown out of it; it had grown in her since that 
time. 

Eizpah reasoned as she found herself interested 
in the last thought : ‘‘Is the plan of my life a Nep- 
tune’s Cup ? How much have I to do with it ? 
Surely with my will and heart and intellect, I can 
choose to do what God’s will is. And I can know 
what he commands ; it is in my mouth, and my 
heart.” 

A year ago would she have reasoned thus? 

“ Here is something else,” she exclaimed in an 
amused voice. “ And what fun Aunt Eizpah and 
I had guessing.” 

In a lively voice she began to read : 

(i ^ What’s the social tree 
And the dancing tree, 

And the tree that is nearest the sea ? 


232 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


The dandiest tree 
And the kissahle tree, 

And the tree where ships may he ? 

What’s the tell-tale tree, 

And the traitor’s tree, 

And the tree that’s the warmest clad ? 

The languishing tree, 

The chronologist’s tree. 

And the tree that makes one sad ? 

W^hat’s the emulous tree. 

The industrious tree. 

And the tree that will never stand still ? 

The unhealthiest tree. 

The Egyptian plague tree, 

And the tree neither up nor down hill ? 

The contemptible tree, 

The most yielding tree. 

And the tree that bears a curse ? 

The reddish brown tree 
The reddish blue tree. 

And the tree like an Irish nurse ? 

“ Vm not a bit good at guessing,’^ said Florence, 
“ but 111 venture that the social tree is the pear.” 

“ Good ! ” cried Mrs. Olmstead; “ and if vines are 
allowed, or we may call the hop vine a tree — 
there’s the hop.” 

“And the beech is nearest the sea,” guessed 
Eizpah, “and the dandiest tree must be the 
spruce.^’ 

“ The tree where ships may be.” Mrs. Olmstead, 
in her eagerness, had thrown aside her work ; she 


GROWING. 


233 


was like a girl where games were concerned, 
“ tliere^s doc\ but again, that is not a tree.’^ 

With her head on Eizpah’s shoulder, Florence 
looked down at the page. 

“The tell-tale tree! What can that be? Is 
there a whispering tree ? 

“That’s like GriflSn, made for the* occasion,^’ said 
Eizpah. 

“ Fir I Fir I ThaFs the tree that’s warmest 
clad,’’ cried Florence, delightedly. “ Wouldn’t it 
make Bee happy to hear me guess something. 
I’m such a stupid.” 

“ Give me a tree,” said Mrs. Olmstead, “ or let 
us all put our heads together.” 

The other head was put “ together,” and three 
pairs of eager eyes were scanning Aunt Eizpah’s 
scrap book. 

“ The kissable tree I Isn’t there a tulip tree ? ’’ 

“ How ridiculous I ’’ said Florence. 

“ Pine must be the languishing tree,” declared 
Eizpah, “and the date palm the chronological tree.” 

“ How easy I Why didn’t I say it ? ” asked 
Florence. 

“ The tree that makes one sad,” read Mrs. Olm- 
stead, “is that the weeping willow, or the 
cypress ? ” 


234 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ Oh, I know the traitor’s tree !” exclaimed Kiz- 
pah, “ the Judas tree, and the unhealthiest tree ?” 

“ Sick — sycamore,” hazarded Mrs. Olmstead. 

“ The tree that bears a curse ! Is that the fig 
tree ? asked Eizpah. 

“ But the contemptible tree and the yielding 
tree! What can they be asked Florence. “We 
must have these when Grijfin comes. May I copy 
it to send to Bud ? ” 

“It isn’t a European curiosity,” said Eizpah, 
“ and we are supposed to be dealing in nothing 
else.” 

“ It’s such a relief to be here and be like home,” 
half sighed Florence. “ I believe this is the best 
part of my European travel, and I’ll write for them 
all to come back.” 

“ The bay tree I ” cried Mrs. Olmstead, sudden- 
ly, “ that is where the ships may be. How stupid 
I was 1 ” 

Eizpah closed the scrap book and looked up 
with eager eyes. 

“Mrs. Olmstead, do you think we are doing all 
we can ? ” 

“Not by any means,’’ was the quick reply, “you 
two girls lack the same essential to real work.” 

“ I’m glad you are as bad as I am,” said Flor- 


GROWING, 


235 


ence, caressing Eizpah’s ear, as Griffin had told 
her she was like a white kitten in her pretty ways, 
and like a kitten, she had to purr and rub herself 
against somebody. 

“ What is it ?” asked Eizpah. At the reply she 
was somewhat surprised: System,^* 

Florence sat upright and looked puzzled: “We 
are not in school,” she said, decidedly. 

Although both girls coaxed her, Mrs. Olmstead 
would not explain her meaning that night ; Eiz- 
pah was too indignant, she saw, and Florence too 
weary. 

You would neither of you be satisfied unless 
you could begin to systematize to-night. You are 
both too tired with climbing and writing and 
thinking to do another thing. 

One night Eizpah had shyly proposed that they 
should read together, and “ talk over ” some of the 
words of Jesus Christ. Mrs. Olmstead had con- 
sented cordially, and after the reading and talk 
had knelt before the sofa with a bowed head upon 
either side of her, and spoken to him whose words 
they had read. 

It was the first time Florence had heard a 
woman’s voice in prayer ; it was the first time she 
had heard a prayer that was simply speaking to 


236 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


one near enough to hear the low tones, and about 
such little doings as the doings of their day, and 
as small desires as the desires of their own hearts ; 
for this earnest voice pleaded for forgiveness of 
vain thoughts and idle words, for low aims in 
study and work, and for selfishness in purpose; 
and what surprised and startled her more than all, 
that the presence of Christ might be as real to 
them and as powerful as he would make them 
able to receive. 

This night Florence opened her Bible first ; Mrs. 
Olmstead usually waited for one of the girls to 
give this sign of readiness for evening devotion. 


XXIIL 


BED-TIME TALK. 

Florence opened her Bible at random and read 
•with absorbed attention while the others were put- 
ting their work away; she lifted her head with a 
question on her lips: ^^Isnt this wonderful about 
Israel prevailing while Moses’ hands were held 
up?” 

“ There are some glorious old stories in that old 
story book,” said Mrs. Olrnstead. 

“And I am just learning them. The Arabian 
Nights is tame compared to them ; and I used to 
hide away and read that for hours when I first 
began to read.” 

“The uplifting of his hands was the symbol of 
his praying — lifting up holy hands — not praying 
once for all, that was not sufficient, but unceasing 
prayer as long as the fighting lasted.” 

Eizpah’s eyes were in a glow. “-Prayer was the 

efficient part of the fighting, then,” she said. 

( 237 ) 


238 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


“ Mrs. Olmstead,” began Florence, then stopped 
confused and then went on bravely: ‘‘I don’t 
know what things are right to pray about; I mean, 
I don’t know what things are wrong to pray 
about. 

“ Pray for anything that you think Jesus would 
pray for if he had come to earth a girl instead of a 
boy, and grown up a woman instead of a man ; it 
isn’t the thing; it is the spirit. I might say to one 
person that it was wrong to pray for money, 
because she wished to “ consume ” it upon her 
“lusts;” to another that it was right to pray for 
money, because of the use to which she would put 
it. Everything God gives us is to be enjoyed, be 
sure of that ; and to be used ; be equally sure of 
that. When the children of Israel were brought 
safely to the land of Canaan they found ‘houses full 
of all good things.’ He will give us houses full 
of all good things now ; but there was a warning 
with the giving ; ‘ beware lest thou forget the 
Lord thy God.’ Anything that will help you to 
remember him and keep you remembering him 
i^ good for you. You can find out that for yom- 
self; I have. Sometimes when God wishes to 
give us a certain thing he creates in us the wish 
for it, then moves us to pray for it, and then assists 


BED. TIME TALK. 


239 


US in getting it • we work with him for it, and he 
works with us ; but the hands must not fall down.” 

“ You help us to hold ours up,^^ said Florence, 
gratefully. “ He must be very busy answering all 
the prayers.^^ 

“ I love to thank him for all the prayers he has 
answered since the world began,” replied Mrs. 
Olmstead. “ I wonder sometimes what the Lord 
will do with all mine; there are many of them 
before him now waiting for his word to move them 
into action. To-day my letter from America 
brought me an answer to a two years’ prayer; 
one of my girls has been a burden in my prayers; 
she is. strong-willed and quick in intellect ; under 
infidel infiuence she paraded herself as an unbe- 
liever, read such books and gloried in such talk ; 
how you two girls would have been shocked at 
some of her replies to me. To-day her letter tells 
me that she has found the Christ of God and given 
herself to him.” 

Both faces beamed in sympathy. 

“ That was a long time to pray, and not give 
up,” said Florence. 

“ I have prayed longer than that before my an- 
swer has come ; one prayer I remember, was an- 
swered several years after I gave up asking for it ; 


240 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE. 


I took the waiting as denial ; it was given not just 
as I asked ; that is, the work was given me, but in 
another place ; I had to be moved to another place 
where it was more needed.^^ 

“ Oh, how interesting ! ” cried Florence ; “ watch- 
ing for your answers must make your life very 
exciting/^ 

‘‘Now I can see that I was not ready for it, 
when I began to ask it ; he withheld it from me, 
and held it for me until he had taught me.^^ 

“Were you disappointed when you did not have 
it ? asked Kizpah. 

“ Yes, at first ; I wondered why work for him 
had to be withheld ; I thought 1 knew how to do 
it. But I like to be in a quandary ; iFs so interest- 
ing — exciting, as Florence says, to watch the way 
1 am put through it and taken out of it ; it seems 
like following a path that leads nowhere, and then 
what a prospect ! ” 

“ But it’s natural to fret a little,^^ said Florence, 
in reply to some protest within herself. 

“ And the grace of it is to be patient, and wait, 
and keep our hands no matter how the battle 
seems going.” 

“ But when it is all against you,^^ said Eizpah. 

“ It can’t be against you unless God is against 


BED-TIME TALK. 


241 


you ; it may seem so. The battle is not yours, but 
his ; let him fight it out ; you pray it out. Such 
praying is as hard as fighting ; we do not always 
get a thing easily by prayiug for it.^^ 

“No,” assented Eizpah, solemnly, “but perhaps, 
may it not be ? that our plan is his way of show- 
ing us what to do ? ” 

“The fretting isn’t. A man does not usually 
make himself sick, devising plans to help his law- 
yer; he chooses a competent law^^er, and trusts him 
to do his business. Christ is our advocate ; isn’t an 
advocate a lawyer ? ” 

Eizpah smiled. “ It would seem very queer for 
me to advise Mr. Snowdon how to invest Aunt 
Eizpah’s money ; it is all in his hands, and I never 
think of it. And the Kinnet plan is so safe with 
him.” 

“ Much less do you fret about it.” 

“ I couldn’t.” 

“ Do you ever fret about anything you have put 
into God’s hands ? ” 

“Yes,” was the low, quiet reply. 

“ Might you not better ask Mr. Snowdon to at- 
tend to it ? ” 

Eizpah smiled, and Florence laughed aloud. 

“ Mrs. Olmstead, does it say in the Bible why we 


242 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


are moved to pray about things? ” asked Florence? 
after a moment. 

Before she answered, Mrs. • Olmstead wondered 
what one thing the child was praying about so 
whole-heartedly. Had her girlish, rounded life 
any outward lack ? 

“ God said once: ‘For this thing I will be in- 
quired of.’ ” 

“And if he doesn’t hear — ” asked the girl, troub- 
led. 

“ He always hears.” 

“ But he if doesn’t answer — ” 

“ He always answers.” 

“ But if he doesn’t answer yes^^ corrected Florence. 

“ Now you have said it.’’ 

“ He is not angry because we ask.” 

“ Answer that yourself.” 

“ I don’t know how.” 

“ Was your father ever angry at anything you 
asked him ? ” 

“ Never,” with loving emphasis, “ but he refuses, 
sometimes ; he said once he liked to know all my 
foolishness.” 

“Your Father in heaven knows it; but I think 
he likes to have you tell it to him ; the baby’s prat- 
tling nonsense is very sweet to mothers, and means 


BED-TIME TALK. 


243 


more than baby tnows. As childhood outgrows 
babyhood, and womanhood outgrows girlhood, so 
we outgrow some of our prayers ; rather some of 
the things we once prayed for — they may have 
been given, or they may not; it doesn’t matter 
much, but we outgrow them as yje grow into bet- 
ter things. I prayed for gold bracelets once.” 

‘‘ Then you don’t believe that childhood is the 
happiest time ! ” said Eizpah. “Aunt Eizpah used 
to say it was.” 

“Mrs. Vanderveer says so,” added Florence. 

“ Indeed I do not ; I pity those who do think so. 
Knowledge of God, and nearness to him is the hap- 
piest time, and no child can receive that as I can ; 
growing up, if we grow in grace, is growing into 
the eternal life.” , 

Florence understood not at all, and Eizpah but 
dimly; Mrs. Olmstead did not explain; they would 
remember it, and grow up to it. 

“ I do not believe Bud is as happy as I am to- 
night,” said Florence convincingly. 

“ In her measure,” explained Eizpah. 

“But her measure is smaller,” said Mrs. Olmstead. 
“Bud holds a pint of happiness, and Blossom a 
quart.” • 

“ But — ” Eizpah considered a silent moment. 


244 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


‘‘ doesn’t God lead ns into mistakes — or misunder- 
standings ? We think we are doing right and it 
grows darker, and then we think it is because 
we have done wrong, and we cannot discern the 
wrong.’’ 

Mrs. Olmstead’s reply also was considered, and 
came very gravely : “ He hath led me and brought 
me — what would you think the rest of it would be ? 
Into what does he lead us? ” 

“ Into good things and bright things,’’ said Flor- 
ence, he cannot lead us into anything else.” 

‘‘‘He hath led me and brought me into darh- 
nesSy hut not into light' ” 

Eizpah took the truth with her up the mountain 
alone the next morning; if he had brought her 
into darkness, why not be glad to stay in dark- 
ness ? 

As Mrs. Olmstead sat alone that night she 
thought: “ I shall never be through talking about 
prayer ; never till I have lived and taught all 
there is in the Bible ; never till the Holy Spirit 
has taught me — all God wills for me to know — 
and teach.’’ 



XXIV. 


PHILIP.” 

Giles had told his mother that when she was 
not a teacher she was not anything ; if little Jean 
came to her laden with flowers to scatter them in 
her lap, she would immediately begin to teach her 
the name or color of the flower, or to count the 
petals ; and when Florence or Eizpah came to her, 
it was always to go away consciously, or uncon- 
sciously, having learned something ; it was not 
that she attempted to teach, she could not be her- 
self without teaching ; Griffln declared that it 
oozed out of her. Eizpah was sure it was her 
unconscious influence ; she was no more aware of 
it than the flower is of its perfume ; perhaps, 
rather, it was as little of herself ; it was in her- 
self. 

While the girls were writing letters one morn- 
ing, she was Ailing several sheets of thin paper 

for the girl in America she had told them abput, 

( 245 ) 


246 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


who had found the Christ of God. She had asked 
Mrs. Olmstead to send her a thought for every 
day, and she wrote them detached, as they had 
come to her wandering about alone, over her sew- 
ing, or when lying awake at night. 

‘‘I am curious about what you are writing,” 
Eizpah said, after watching the swift movement 
of her pen awhile. 

“ You shall know when I am through.^^ 

Before the writing was ended Florence finished 
her letters and ran down-stairs to Jean in the gar- 
den ; Eizpah laid aside the simple French transla- 
tion she had been busy about, and took up the 
sheets Mrs. Olmstead laid upon her writing tablet. 

For August First — You cannot repent any 
time you like ; but you can repent any time God 
likes: repentance is as much his gift as any other; 
you cannot naturally be sorry for any sin. Every 
such sorrow is born of grace. 

Second . — When I pray I am only one ; but 
Jesus intercedes when even one is praying, and 
what a power is my prayer, then ! 

“ Third , — ‘ There was nothing else to be done, 
and so I prayed,’ you say. It would save a world 
of time, of anxiety, and unbelief to go to God first 
instead of last. Is he our forlorn hope ? 


“ philip:\ 


247 


‘^Fourth — Sometimes I feel as if I could not 
bear a word from him ; all I desire is to feel him 
near me ; not to think of anything he ever said, 
but only of what he always is* To see his face, 
that is all. 

“ Fifth — There is more pleasure in praying for 
some things than for others ; I would rather pray 
that you may be fitted for some special work than 
that you may have a happy summer ; that you 
may learn of the things of Christ, than that you 
may take the medal in composition. 

^‘Sixth — In that hard day of yours it must have 
been that some blessing was to come in weakness 
that could not be given to your strength. Not 
that God is limited, except as he limits himself; 
and there are certain conditions that he will have 
before he goes to work in us for us. (But those 
certain conditions are the result of his work in us. 
Oh, what isn’t ?) 

He could do no mighty work once because of 
unbelief, and strength of one’s own, depending 
upon it, is a kind of unbelief. 

'‘^Seventh — Enough to think about! Enough to 
pray about ! 

"'‘Eighth — About reading the Bible; I do not 
wonder that you ask for some one to teach you. 


248 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


The Eunuch said to Philip: ‘How can I except 
some man guide me ? ’ Seme man. God is willing 
to teach us through some man, some woman, 
whom he himself has taught. If it be good for 
you, best for you — he loves to give the best — he 
will send some one to guide you. Be quick to 
take it from whomsoever he sends. 

Ninth . — Into the wilderness Christ was led by 
the Spirit. Into the wilderness the man was 
driven by the devil. Be sure your wilderness is 
of the Spirit’s leading, and not of being driven by 
any devil of unbelief. Unbelief has a thousand 
forms. 

Tenth . — God does not do one thing instead of 
another for you because one thing is easier than 
another for him to do ; but because one thing is 
wiser than another for him to do. 

^'‘Eleventh . — ^You want to be sure of so many 
things ; how can you be sure that Peter found the 
money in the mouth of the fish? It is not 
recorded; who knows? Do not you? Is there 
not an implied promise in every command ? 

^’‘Twelfth . — I know it is kept in the Book of 
Eemembrance — and I would love to know how 
many women since the day she did it have been 
inspired by the woman who touched the hem of 


PHILIP:^ 


249 


his garment. I have imagined myself in her po- 
sition behind him, stooping so many times, and 
have put out my hand to touch him. Did I touch 
nothing ? I touched him and he knew it, and I 
knew it. 

Thirteenth , — At eighteen I began to take a 
new interest in my own life; before that my 
interest had been in fun — if that is a girl’s word — 
and books ; then it began to be to watch what I 
would do, and what would be done with me. 
Now I watch other lives as well as my own. 

Fourteenth , — To every man his work — God 
gives, and takes away. 

^^Fifteenth , — For how little things may we pray? 
There is but one thing so little that we may not 
pray about it, and that is the one thing too small 
for God to see and govern and care about. 

^‘Sixteenth , — Must we not desire everything that 
we pray for with all our hearts? We must desire 
each thing with the desire that belongs to it; each 
desire has its measure of eagerness; I should be 
very sorry for you if you desired to come to me to 
share and help in my pleasant days here as long- 
ingly as you desire to share in the joy of the Lord 
and to help him to do his work. If you should 
lose a dollar would you pray as earnestly to find it 


250 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


as if you should lose a hundred? This also 
answers your similar question : ‘ Must I pray only 

for what I desire with all my heart ? You cannot 
desire everything with all your heart ; but you 
must be sufficiently in earnest in everything you 
ask. Would I answer your questions if I knew 
you asked them half-heartedly? 

“ When we go to God with half a heart he often 
waits, (not always, blessed for us ! ) until we come 
with a whole heart. 

‘^Seventeenth , — Must we try every other means, 
and go to God last ? What is any means unless 
God is in it ? 

“ Would the sun warm you if God didn’t make it, 
or water quench your thirst if God didn’t make it ? 
Means without God is very poor stuff. I would 
rather have God without means. But he has given 
us himself and means are in his good providence. 

“ Eighteenth — I can best answer another question 
by telling you a story about myself. I wished very 
much to give a Bible in a clear type to a young 
girl who read her own small printed Bible with 
weak eyes, but I had not the money. (Some- 
times in giving and spending I have to calculate 
so closely that fifty cents holds much more than its 
nominal value.) To get the money I wrote a 


PHILIP: 


251 


short article for a paper, resolving to use the mon- 
ey paid for it in that way; but, to my surprise (for 
I had promised the Lord I would give the money 
to that end) the article was speedily refused. But 
she must have the Bible ; my purse held the exact 
amount; two dollars. But I needed that for. some- 
thing else. Still she must have the Bible, so I took 
my last cent for it, and sent the article else- 
where and it was immediately accepted and paid 
for — five dollars. I made three dollars by the trans- 
action. Suppose I had decided that my promise 
need not be kept because the article was not ac- 
cepted; or as I might put it, because God had not 
done his part. 

“ There would be several sheets of waste paper in 
my drawer; I should not have had the three dollars to 
do some other good thing with (rather, one dollar, 
as the two had to be paid for the two I borrowed 
from myself) and she would not have had her Bible. 
Not from me; I do not believe that God would 
have kept the Bible from her, if he wished her to 
have it, but I should have lost my share of it. Do 
you not think God wished to proveto me (he knew) 
if I were really in earnest ? I am glad I was. 

Nineteenth — We are sure God’s plans cannot be 
interfered with, for he can look ahead a year as 


252 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


easily as we can look back a year. Nothing is in 
a tangle to him.^^ 

Kizpah read this again and again; had he not 
planned her life, looking ahead? He was not 
puzzled, he knew what to do. 

“ Twentieth . — Growing spirituality is growing 
power; power with God, power with men. 

“ Twenty-first . — Christ is on our side, on the hu- 
man side, pleading before God; the hands he holds 
up are pierced with the nails of the cross ; they are 
human hands, as human as our own. He is always : 
‘ this same Jesus.’ ” 

This same Jesus ! Eizpah’s heart broke with 
the tenderness of it. And he cared when her 
heart ached with her human care and human 
loving ; he loved John and Peter, not only as God 
loves, but as one human friend loves another ; he 
loved the young man who went away sorrowful, 
and yet he let him go away — and sorrowful. 

Mrs. Olmstead,” dropping the sheet in her lap, 
“ oh, why did he let that young man go away sor- 
rowful, when he loved him ? ” 

“ He loved him too much to do anything less 
than his best for him.^^ 

“ Why did he not do that then ? ” 

“ The young man was not willing to take it.^^ 


PHILIP: 


253 


“ But,” Eizpah persisted, ‘‘ he could have made 
him willing.” 

“ How do you know that he never did ? 

‘‘ He did not that day.^^ 

“ But he knew where he was next day.” 

“ Yes,” with hesitating assent. 

There were several sheets still to be read ; she 
lingered over them as if fearful of coming to the 
last. But when she came to the last she would 
still have Mrs. Olmstead. She was her Philip. Now 
she had a name for her that no one else would have. 

“ Twenty-second . — I am looking for a letter to- 
day ; it is an important letter, it will make a differ- 
ence in my plans. I am saying to myself that it is 
a letter from the Lord. He has written his will 
for me with that maffs pen. 

“ Tiventy-third . — Once when I was ill and plan- 
ning to do something, I prayed that I might not 
have a certain pain at that certain time. And the 
answer came ; it was the certain pain at the cer- 
tain time. A denial, was it not ? It seemed a 
perfect denial. So it was. But I had what I 
wanted most ; I wanted his will most ; and he 
was so sure of it, that he could deny me, and give 
me his will. I think I had my will about it, and 
he had his will. 


254 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


‘‘He can see through the bewildering, contra- 
dictory desires, and see if love of his will be there ; 
he can feel through the throbbing of our intensity 
down deep to the recH will in us ; he can see it 
when we cannot: if a tiny bit of real desire for 
his will is there, he educates (draws it out) and 
strengthens that. 

“ ‘ Not my will (although T want it so) but thine 
be done,’ educates and makes strong his will in us ; 
when his will is all done in us, and for others 
through us, our work is finished in this part of 
his kingdom. 

“ Twenty-fourth , — An unforgiving spirit alone 
will send a man to hell. Why ? Because such a 
spirit cannot accept the forgiveness of God. Trem- 
ble for yourself if you harbor a hard thought 
toward any human being ; that hard thought is 
keeping away from you some part of the blessing 
of God. 

“ Twenty ffth . — You are afraid to die? How 
can you be afraid to go into another life and meet 
the Lord any more than you can be afraid to stay 
in this life and meet him — as you do every day ? 
I was once afraid ; I asked to have the dreadful- 
ness taken away. 

“ Twenty-sixth,— (jodi put his word in Balaam’s 


PHILIP: 


255 


mouth; he chooses whom he will to do his work, 
even to speak his words. He chose disobedient 
Jonah to preach to Nineveh. He chose Judas to 
be his disciple as well as John. The one chosen 
cannot say : ‘ He has chosen me because he sees 
the fitness in me.^ And the chosen one has to be 
Tcept like any other. What a lovely reason for 
choosing Israel ! ‘ Because the Lord loved thee.^ 

Can anything give us sweeter humility than to 
think: The Lord has chosen me. 

“ Twenty-seventJi . — Do you pray for you ‘know 
not what,’ when you pray for his will to be done ? 
Yes, surely. There’s what your faith comes in. 
That is what he loves to reward. 

“ Twenty-eighth . — Just think what we have to 
look forward to ! The beauty, and goodness and 
sureness of his will. Is there anything better in 
heaven ? Did Christ himself have anything better 
on earth ? 

“ Twenty-ninth . — Balaam loved the wages of un- 
righteousness ; we have a right to love the reward 
of obedience. Great is your reward in heaven. 
Do we slight it by not thinking of it, even ? 

“ Thirtieth . — I think you are too proud ; it is 
sinfully proud to be ashamed to receive favors. 
Although Paul worked with his own hands, " once 


256 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


and again,’ his necessities were ministered nnto. 
Lazy, idle thriftlessness may well be ashamed to 
be ministered unto ; and when you are lazy and 
idle, he ashamed. 

“ Thirty-first — At eighteen, as I said, I began 
to take a new interest in my life ; at thirty-five, I 
said : ‘ My life is half lived.’ And it was, accord- 
ing to the lifetime of threescore and ten. ‘My 
wilful, planning life is half over; the life in which 
I had prayed God to do my will, a life of mistakes, 
disappointments, a hard life, as we count hard- 
ness ; I am heart-sick of all that. I do not want 
any longer a life of my own ; the other half shall 
be, not at all my own, it shall be wholly the 
Lord’s life ; he may take it from me, or he may 
lengthen it into harder hardship ; he may do 
exactly as he wills.’ And as the first, and second 
and third year of his half went on, my regret was 
'that he had not had it all, for each year it became 
more fruitful. How old are you ? Are you not 
sick of having your own will and your own way — 
desiring it rather, and praying for it? You may 
not wait as long as 1 waited. Fifteen years I have 
lived since then, and these fifteen years have held 
double the happiness and work of the thirty-five. 
Such personal friendship with Jesus Christ I never 


PHILIPS 


257 


had before, and never such opportunities of ser- 
vice. I would live ten of these lives if I could ; 
and I wish nothing happier for you, for I do not 
know of anything happier.’^ 

The last leaf fluttered to her lap; Eizpah arose, 
and went to the window where Mrs. Olmstead sat 
writing to Giles; putting both arms around her, 
she laid her cheek down upon her hair. 

“You are my Philip.'’ 

Mrs. Olmstead lifted her hand with the pen in it, 
to touch one of the loving hands. 

“ But you are so far, so far ahead of me.” 

“ I’ve been longer on the way, dear.” 

“ I’m glad you were bad and wilful.’^ 

“ So am 1.” 

“ I want to do at twenty-five, what you did at 
thirty-five.’^ 

The hand with the pen gave her an encourag. 
ing pat. 

“ Every fault I have has been made of use in 
helping somebody; I understand impatient girls, 
stupid girls, wilful girls ; I think, ‘ Y ou are not as 
bad as I was,’ and I am hopeful. I believe I grew 
more slowly than any girl I’ve ever known. I 
know I’m stupid now.’’ 

“ I cannot believe that.” 

17 


258 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ Miss Sharpe, my Vice-principal, says she was 
always quick in arithmetic, and now she cannot 
teach a mind slow to grasp an arithmetical truth; 
I was always stupid in arithmetic, and she sends 
the stupid ones to me. I cannot be out of patience 
with any girl, when I remember myself as I was, 
and as I am.’^ 

“ I think I would like to go to your school. Am 
I too old ? ” 

“ No ; you are just right. I have girls twenty, 
and one twenty-two. IVe been waiting for you to 
propose it.” 

“Florence will laugh at me; she is through 
school. But I would like to be with girls in a 
school.” 

“You grow younger every day ; you were old with 
. esponsibility; I would like to see you laughing 
among my girls.” 

“ Mr. Snowdon will not object ; any way he is 
not the guardian of myself; and Mr. and Mrs. 
Chevil will not care. Aunt Eizpah wanted me to 
go to school.” 

“ I wonder what Giles will think of it? ” 

“• Will he care ? ” asked Eizpah, with some un- 
steadiness. 

“ He will care, certainly ; but I cannot conjee- 


PHILIP: 


259 


ture in what manner. You must tell him I did 
not influence your choice.” 

“ Except — by being yourself,” laughed Eizpah. 
“ I wish you would stay here, at Chateau d’Oex, and 
establish a school — begin with us two.” 

“We might call this a school now.” 

“ And get the Chevils back, and a few other 
American girls ; wouldn’t it be delightful ? 

“What would become of my school at home 
“ What becomes of it now, with Miss Sharp ? ” 

“ The prospect is tempting,” with a little sigh, 
“about a dozen fathers and mothers I know would, 
as they say, jump at the chance of sending their 
daughters to Chateau d’Oex for a year or longer. 
You have stirred me up with your young enthusi- 
asm. But don’t you long for Aunt Eizpah’s old 
house, such days as these ? ” 

“Not when I am happy, but when my heart 
aches the least little bit, it flies back to that room 
we had together. I shall go there, if ever my heart 
breaks.” 


XXV. 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE. 

Florence declared that it was the “ system ” that 
made the months of July and August so short, and 
that she loved the days for the sake of the routine ; 
Eizpah said it was the system that had accom- 
plished so much; letters were written at stated 
hours, fancy work taken up when the clock struck 
the hour for it ; every hour had its appointed 
work ; it was Eizpah’s first experience of “ board- 
ing-school.” 

The last day of August was a marked one 
in their calendar. Giles and Griffin walked in 
as they sat at work that evening, bronzed and 
hilarious. 

“ Everything is just the same,” cried Griffin, 
after he had taken a brother’s privilege and kissed 
the girls, and a son’s and kissed Giles’ mother ; “ I 
had a fear that something would be changed or 

gone. I’ve been so changed and gone myself 
( 260 ) 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE. 


261 


since I saw my mother married ! 1 am a waif, 

will you take me in ? 

‘‘ You will spoil ont system,” said Florence ; 
‘^we breathe by clock, work now; Eizpah should 
be reading aloud this minute.” 

“ Blossom, you have really grown pretty. A1 
low me to say it, for you never were so pretty in 
your life ; you really have grown into some expres- 
sion; I didn’t think two months of eight short 
weeks could work such a marvel.” 

The pretty flush under his admiring eyes and 
her drooping eyelids, the involuntary moving to 
the side of Mrs. Olmstead as if for protection, and 
then the dignity of Miss Chevil coming to the 
rescue as she lifted her head and looked at him 
half shy, half glad, moved GriflSn as Florence 
Chevil had never moved him before. 

‘‘ It’s in her and coming out,” he said to him- 
self. 

Had Eizpah grown silent, or was she always so 
still, Giles questioned; her stillness depressed him 
to-night; she was like herself only when GriflSn 
spoke to her, or she forgot something in herself in 
listening to his rattling talk. First he gave a 
description of his meeting with his mother ; it 
began with something ludicrous but ended in a 


262 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


serious account of their long conference the night 
before the wedding. 

“Mother gave in, she always does when she 
has to — the little Indians are to live with them and 
have a governess, and everybody is to be happy for- 
ever after. He — my step-father — has gone into a 
new business with a very decent salary for a 
young unmarried man, but not enough to keep his 
wife in pin-money. I’m going home to be there 
on my birthday to make my mother a well-to-do 
woman again, and then strike out for myself. 
Blossom, will you marry me and go out west ? ” 
cried Florence, indignantly. 

“Is it the going out west you object to?^^ he 
asked, innocently. 

But Florence’s eyes were full of tears. 

“ I beg ten million pardons;” exclaimed Griffin. 
“ I’m a bear and a brute, and I hope you will never 
speak to me again; but the truth is I’m off my 
base a little to-night; I’ve been awfully wretched 
and getting back to somebody who cares for a 
fellow and what becomes of him has broken me 
all up. Will you forgive me, dear ? ” 

“ No,” sobbed Florence, excitedly hiding her face 
on Kizpah’s shoulder; in a moment she lifted her 
head with a laugh and big tears shining in her eyes. 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE. 


263 


“I knew I hadn’t broken your heart; you will 
quarrel with me to-morrow and we’ll both be as 
hateful as ever. I do not blame Tennyson’s Prin- 
cess for not allowing men in her school ; you see 
what is the upshot of it. Mrs. Olmstead, will you 
send us away?” . . 

“Not to-night; and I do not want to punish 
Giles for your misdoing.” 

“ Oh, he’ll never misdo. Those English people 
quite admired him and threw me in the back 
ground; my step-father would rejoice in such 
a step-son, whereas he’s somewhat dubious 
about me. Mother wants me to go back and 
study for something or other in England,” he 
added with a laugh, “ she’s afraid something will 
become of me alone in America; her hope for me 
is still founded on Giles.” 

“ What are you going to do ?” asked Florence, 
impatiently. 

“Make soap — wouldn’t you like that? Some 
of my money is gone- — there was one invest- 
ment our lawyer, my guardian, was afraid of, 
and it has burst now, and I have my share 
in the loss ; mother was hysterical over it ; but 
I don’t seem to be moved. I donT know why 
not; I believe my mother’s marrying has turned 


264 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


me to stone. I don’t seem to care what becomes 
of me.’’ 

Mrs. Olmstead laid her hand on his head, his 
lips were quivering like a girl’s. 

“ I am so disappointed^' he burst out. “ I wanted 
her to be my ideal of a woman ; I wanted her to 
love my dear old father all the way to the end, 
and love me as I thought mothers did love only 
sons ; and she has chosen that stranger, and her 
own ease ; she did break down when she parted 
from me, but I’ll warrant she had a gay time be- 
fore the day was over.” 

He was playing with Eizpah’s small scissors 
while he was talking in snatches, with the sound 
of a sob in his voice ; Florence’s eyes were full of 
tears. 

“ Don’t you mind, little girl,” he said, looking up 
at her, “ I had to have it out.” 

‘‘ I am so sorry,” she said. “ I didn’t know you 
cared so.” 

‘‘ If I had been difierent, like old Giles here, for 
instance, I might have been more to her ; but I’m 
such a harum-scarum that she hasn’t had much 
comfort in me — she acknowledged that she hadn’t 
— and I suppose a woman must have somebody to 
waste her affections on — somebody that responds. 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE, 


265 


He^s a big, dull fellow, doesn^t say one word to 
her twenty-seven — but I suppose that^s all right if 
she^s satisfied ; I am horridly selfish and jealous, 
but I never saw my mother married before, and I 
have to get used to it.” 

His whimsical tone brought a laugh even from 
silent Kizpah ; Mrs. Olmstead went down for lunch 
for the travellers, Eizpah took her work into her 
hands again, that her eyes might have an excuse 
for being kept hidden; Florence prepared a table 
for the lunch, with GriflSn^s assistance, and Giles 
followed his mother to assist her in bringing up 
the simple fare. 

“Confess, girls, you have moped here without us.’^ 

“We haven’t one bit,” said Florence, spiritedly, 
“ have we, Eizpah ? ” 

“No said Eizpah, “that was not in our sys- 
tem.” 

“ I think you might say you are glad to have 
me back,” persuaded Griffin, in his affectionate, 
boyish way. 

“ I aTTZ,” replied Eizpah. “ I know you need a 
scolding by this time.” 

“Are you. Blossom ? ” 

“ No,” said Blossom, saucily, “not if you must 
be doleful all the time.” 


266 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


‘‘You^Il see to-morrow/^ lie returned, hopefully, 
with his easy air of self-possession and easy posses- 
sion of all other things. Giles had told him that 
he believed the world was made for him and he 
had but to take it. 

“ I’m an orphan now, you know,^^ he said, pite- 
ously. 

“Yes,’^ said Florence, with a touch of scorn, 
“and ready to follow any finger that beckons. 

“ Any one who beckons in the way of his incli- 
nation,^^ corrected Eizpah. 

He stepped to the back of Eizpah^s chair, and 
drew her head down to his arm. 

“ Am I so weak, do you think 

“ Yes,’’ in her low, distinct voice. 

“Ill show you that I have some backbone,” 
he muttered between his teeth, as Giles entered, 
bearing a pitcher and a loaf of bread. 

Something like a gleam of anger shot across 
the face of Giles as Griffin glanced toward him ; 
she gave so much of herself to Griffin, and so lit- 
tle to him ; but then did he dare as Griffin dared ? 
Had he not dared and lost all? Would Griffin 
dare further than this? But Griffin was already 
cutting the bread and inviting them all to the 
table with his merry air of good-fellowship ; at 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE, 


267 


the foot, or at the side, wherever Griffin sat was 
the head of the table. 

The lamp-light fell upon the white pine floor 
and upon the pictures from illustrated papers that 
Florence had pinned upon the walls ; the small 
room had never seemed so cozy and homelike; 
Griffin had recovered his flow of high spirits (Giles 
said to himself that he could make himself any- 
thing at a mementos notice), Florence was still 
slightly disturbed in expression and manner, and 
Eizpah was too quiet to be wholly herself. She had 
counted the days until they came, and now she 
wished there were further days to be counted ; 
the estrangement, for it had amounted to that, 
between herself and her old friend, was more than 
ever evident ; he had shaken hands with her as 
with a stranger, seen for the first time ; she 
acknowledged to herself that to-night she longed 
for the safe hiding of Aunt Eizpah’s old rooms. 
She would rather never hear his voice nor see his 
face, unless the face might be turned in kindness 
toward herself, and the voice speak as he spoke to 
the others ; she had tendered him her friendship 
and he had refused it. Why should those old 
words run through her mind: “For the Lord hath 
called thee as a woman, forsaken and grieved in 


268 


RTZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


spirit, and as a wife of youth, when thou wast 
refused.'^' 

She tasted the bread and honey because GriflSn 
insisted, but it rested upon her tongue ; she left 
the table before she could swallow it. After the 
meal was ended, Griffin insisted upon taking 
the remnant down-stairs and commanded Florence 
to assist him, and placed the large pitcher in the 
hands of Mrs. Olmstead. Eizpah stood idly by a 
table, turning over and over a piece of brown 
paper; the room was so hushed she thought she 
was alone. Lifting her eyes, she met a full, serious 
glance regarding her — ‘‘ when thou wast refused.” 
The words shot through heart and brain. 

“ You look pale, Miss Eizpah; isn’t this air 
good for you ? ” 

“0 yes,” she answered, hurriedly. “This 
place is good for me.’’ 

“ Your letters to Griffin — of course I saw them, 
sounded very happy ; I hoped you were having a 
happy summer.” 

“ Oh, I am, a very happy one ; I did not expect 
ever to be so happy again.” 

“ I do not like to see you troubled.” 

“I am not ; they tell me I have excellent color.” 

“ Does Griffin worry you ? He will get over 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE, 


269 


this ; he takes things hard, but they do not last.” 

“No, he would die if they did. 

“ Would you like — do you expect to finish the 
summer here ? Is anything settled for you ? ” 

“ I don^t know.” 

Her eyes were upon the brown paper; the sym- 
pathy in the eyes she had met for that one instant 
nearly overcame her; she saw through a blurred 
vision. The something she could not love had 
vanished to-night. 

“ GriflS.n and I may go off again; he doesn’t 
know what he wants; the original plan is changed, 
and I am anxious to settle down to my work; this 
sight-seeing palls after awhile. Hard work is the 
only thing I care for; the only thing I am made 
for.” 

“ Don’t say that,” she spoke impulsively, “you 
are too young.” 

“ I am older than you are.” 

“ But I do not say it.” 

“ What do you care for ? ” 

“ I think just now, I care more than anything to 
go to sleep,” she said, putting her hand to her tem- 
ple to stay its dull throbbing. 

Florence ran in laughing. Griffin was pursuing 
her, and trying to snatch a letter from her hand. 


270 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ You two children ! exclaimed Eizpah. 

The good nights were not spoken until midnight; 
Griffin had endless stories to tell, the others listen- 
ed and laughed, and asked questions. 

“We must have a climb in the morning,” he 
said. “ Mrs. Olmstead, skip the lessons; can’t your 
little girls have a vacation ? ” 

As Eizpah stood with her lamp in her hand, on 
the threshold of her own room, Giles went to her 
and asked if anything had been done in Kinnet. 

“It is all in Mr. Snowdon’s hands; I have decid- 
ed to spend seven thousand; I have written what 
I would like the house to be, and he is to decide 
about the church. The money is in the hands of 
the building committee of the church where Mr. 
Snowdon is elder; I had a letter this morning, the 
work will be done as speedily as may be; the 
school-house is crowded at evening service; the 
summer residents are taking an interest in it, and 
promising to furnish the new parsonage. There 
is talk of a railroad within a mile of the church ; 
everything in the community has taken a fresh 
start.” 

“ The next thing will be a post-office and a rail- 
way station.” 

“Mr. Snowdon is hoping for that: two handsome 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE. 271 

houses are being built now for summer residences ; 
he says the name may be changed; Kinnet is the 
name of an old family, they gave the ground for 
the church ; but they have the best right to the 
name; Aunt Kizpah would not like her name to be 
anywhere in it.’^ 

“And her name is yours.” 

“My name has no right there — and I wanted to 
tell you — it is not only for her that I wish to do it, 
not for her that I choose this way of doing it; I 
could have chosen some other memorial for her ; 
but since I have had your mother I have learned 
so much — it is a new gospel to me since she has 
read it with us- — ’’ 

“I understand you; I did not think it was only 
for Aunt Rizpah ; I understand you better than 
you understand yourself.^^ 

She did not give a saucy laugh as Florence 
would have done : she kept her eyes upon the lamp 
in her hand, and awkwardly said nothing. 

“ Good night,” he said. 

Withtbe constraint of one abruptly dismissed, 
she left him without a word. Would he not have 
detained her longer had he cared to say what he 
understood ? “ Forsaken and grieved in spirit.’^ 

When she had so much to be glad of! Had he 


272 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


felt at all like this over her curt refusals ? Had 
she hurt him as he- was hurting her ? But had 
she not forbidden him ever to speak again? Be- 
wildered, indignant, miserable, and knowing no 
way out * of her bewilderment, she did not fall 
asleep until the dawn was lighting her small 
room. It would be a relief to have him “ under- 
stand,’^ but she w’as very sure that he utterly mis- 
understood. If she could not understand herself, 
how could he understand her ? Was there another 
girl in the whole world that did not know whether 
she wanted a thing or did not want it ? 

“ I must go home,’’ Mrs. Olmstead announced 
in the morning ; “ my school opens the nineteenth 
and to-day is the second.” 

‘‘ Let’s all go home,” exclaimed Griffin ; “what’s 
the good of a home if we don’t go to it ? 
Although I’m sure I don’t know where mine is. 
What is home without a mother ? ’’ 

“You are as old as Alexander was when he 
became king,” said Florence. 

“Well, so are you, — almost,” he retorted. 

“ But I’m only a girl.” 

“My mad career is about closed. Having no 
mother to depend on, I must depend upon myself; 
no Orphan Asylum will open its arms to me; Eiz- 


THE HEAD OF THE TABLE. 


273 


pah will not take me to her house to weed her 
garden ; but, ‘ there’s always room at the top, lad,’ 
and there’s where I’m bound.” 

The determined purpose running through the 
light tone,, brought a look to Eizpah’s eyes that 
Griffin was not unaware of ; he would do more than 
a little for the sake of that look. 

“I must work for somebody^ as well as some- 
thing,” he thought. 

Every hand laid on his, gave him a moulding 
touch. 

I am only a shawl-strap traveller,’^ said Mrs. 
Olm stead, “ I can start this afternoon.” 

“ I would be glad to,” replied Eizpah. Chateau 
d’Oex has been the scene of. many plans, but some 
wind is blowing us all toward home.” 

“ I am as glad to go as I was to stay,” declared 
Florence. “ I want to go home and go to school, 
and I thought 1 was finished.” 

“Life’s unfinished story still keeps on,” said 
Griffin. 


18 


XXVI. 


^^KEWS.” 

That morning, an hour later, as Eizpah sat on 
the side of her bed, surveying the piles of confu- 
sion she had taken from her trunk, for the sole 
purpose of putting them back again, GriflSn 
tapped at her door. 

An absent-minded “ Come,’^ brought him in ; 
she arose hastily: ‘‘ I thought it was Mrs. 01m- 
stead or Jean^s mother: I do not want you in 
here.” 

“ I want youj the place doesn't matter, come out 
to the brook; I want to talk to you.’' 

The something in his face, as well as his voice, 
stirred her to instant compliance. After a hasty 
glance about the disordered room, and a woman’s 
way of picking up something on her way to the 
door, she asked: “Have you had news from your 
mother ? ” 

“ I have had news, but not from my mother; 

( 274 ) 


^^NEWS.^^ 


275 


from this world or some other, I don’t care which. 
Where’s your hat? Don^t take your basket,” he 
cried, impatiently, as she took it from the table in 
the sitting-room, “I want to talk to you before 
they come back.^^ 

Stay here, then,” she said, dropping down on 
the sofa with an undefined alarm, “ tell me quick 
if it is something dreadful. I don’t feel strong 
enough to bear anything this morning.” 

Seating himself beside her he took her hand and 
began to twist her ring around her finger. 
“ When I said I wanted you^ I said the whole 
truth. Mother saw it and warned me ; women 
see quick; I did not see that danger was ahead 
and that I wanted what Giles has a prior right to 
— if he has any right at all, as you know best. 
You are not like other girls, and I didn^t admire 
you at first, but you have grown on me and now I 
can’t do without you.^^ 

He did not look up to see the whitened lips 
and dilated eyes; he pushed the ring around and 
around and kept on with a kind of fierce self- 
restraint. “ I had it out with Giles last night, 
and he said I would not Avrong him, for he had 
not the shadow of a right to you ; I would have 
cut my tongue out before I would have spoken 


276 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE, 


without his permission. You know what I am, as 
unstable as water and as strong-willed as Niagara 
itself ; you have lifted me up out of the mire of 
myself, you liaven^t flinched when the truth was to 
be told, and, if you love me, it is all of grace — as 
it says in the Bible about sinners — but I shall drift 
on without your hand to hold me back — ^you have 
been what my mother should have been — what 
she might have been, poor mother, if I had given 
myself to her as I have to you ; you have been 
my strength and my conscience, just as much by 
what you are, as by what you have said to me, and 
now I can’t let you go, I must have you and keep 
you. Eizpah, dont you love me, dear ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Eizpah, “ how can I help loving 
you? You are like a little, big brother to me.” 

“ And no more ? Is that oR ? ” 

“ That is all ; oh, I wish — I wish it was more ; I 
would love you if I could ; I want to help you ; I 
am so glad 1 have helped you, I never helped any- 
body before.” 

“You can help me ; you can love me if you 
want to,” he cried exultingly. “ I knew you 
couldn’t be so good to me, without loving me.” 

“No ; I had to love you, and I do, and always 
shall, but don’t you see, Griffin dear, that it is not 


^^NEWS: 


277 


like (hat. You are my little brother ; I love you 
looking at you as you are, not at what I want you 
to be — I do not love you as my big brother yet. I 
do not love you as you love me.’^ 

“You couldn’t,^’ he said, positively. “I do not 
deserve it.” 

“ Deserving isn^t anything ; what do I deserve ? 
Now Griffin, be reasonable, you have a great deal 
of common sense ” — 

“ What has common sense to do with this?” he 
burst out. “ Tell me, ‘ yes,’ or tell me ‘ no,’ will you 
be my wife as soon as I am twenty-one ? 

“ No.” 

He knew the tone ; there was no appeal from it. 

“You said you loved me,” he pleaded. 

“1 told you how — ^not that way; you are too 
much of a man to want a wife to love you like 
that.” 

“You may love me any way you like, if you will 
only love me,^^ he cried joyously; “don’t you sup- 
pose I am on the way to the top of manhood ? 
Isn’t it in me ? ” 

“You know it is; and you will prove that it is 
there by being reasonable about this, and never 
thinking of it again.” 

“ I did not mean to speak of it ; I meant to crush 


278 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


it, and live above it; but you looked pale last night, 
and I was broken up by coming back and seeing 
you — and I am so desolate, anyway.” 

“ You will outgrow this, you will not be deso- 
late long; you have too much to do; we will all 
go home, and go to work.” 

“ You think I am as shallow as all that ; that I 
shall forget you for the next new face I see.” 

“ Not for the very next; you will never forget me ; 
I want to be your best friend ; a sister and a mother 
in one. I am five years older than you are.” 

‘‘You may be five hundred for all I care.” 

“ Do you care to please me ? ” 

“ I care for that more than anything; haven’t I 
shown it in everything I’ve done since I’ve known 
you ? ” 

“ Then please me by showing me how manly 
and strong you can be about this; you will mako- 
me very unhappy if you do not, and I shall be sor- 
ry that I have been like a sister or a dear friend 
to you.” 

“It’s dangerous business,” he muttered, “don’t 
you ever try it again ! I wish you would tell me 
something ; but I have no right to ask, but I shall 
keep on hoping and trying till I know it from your 
own lips ; may I ask you a question ? ” 


^^NEWS: 


279 


How well she knew what that question would be ! 
Would she be brave and tell the truth ? It would 
be so little to do for the poor boy who was suffering 
under her refusal, like the strong man that he was. 

“ Yes, and I will tell you the truth.’’ 

“ I knew you would, my brave Eizpah. But I 
feel like a coward to ask it; don’t tell me if it 
hurts too much.” 

“ I will tell you anything that will help you.” 

He was pushing the ring hard into her flesh ; he 
set his teeth together, and asked flercely : “ Do you 
love some one else that way ? The way you want 
to love your husband ? ” 

He waited for the reply ; was she thinking ? Or 
did she not know ? 

“I do not know.” The guarded half admission 
startled herself. 

“ Is it Giles ? ” cutting the words off short. 

The low “ no — yes,” scarcely reached his ear. 

He let her hand fall, and arose to his feet. “And 
this is what I have done — his blood-brother ! I've 
been trying to steal you away from him ; but he 
said—” 

■^he arose and stood beside him ; he bent his taU 
head and kissed her. “ Forgive me ; it is the last 
time; I am not wronging him.” 


280 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“ I told you that to help you. I told you as much 
as I knew myself — I haven’t decided — will you 
promise me something to help me ? I have not 
dared to tell it to myself.” 

“ You know I will.” 

“Promise me that he shall never know this 
from you.^^ Her voice failed, her head fell upon his 
arm ; “ be my strong true friend and help me ; 
promise me that he shall never even gv^ess it from 
what you tell him.” 

“ I promise with all my heart ; if he’s such a 
fool that he can’t find it out for himself, may he 
never know it,” he said, with characteristic blunt- 
ness. “ Here they come up the garden ; I shall 
not be home at dinner time ; don’t let Giles come 
after me. I might be inclined to push him over a 
precipice.” 

“And — wait a moment ; have you forgiven me ? 
I did not thinh of such a thing,” she pleaded, self- 
reproachfully. 

“No, I have not forgiven you, because there is 
nothing to forgive. I am a stupid blunderer, and 
I blundered into it, and into telling you ; I will 
try to have a back-bone about it, and everything 
else. I’ll write to mother when I come back, and 
tell her I am going home to begin my manhood. 


^^NEWS: 


281 


And now 111 climb as high as I can, and find 
out how much room there is at the top. Don’t 
you be troubled.” 

He spoke gayly, with the slightest faltering at 
the end ; for how could he care for the top, or any- 
where, without this Eizpah who was holding him 
so fast ? Florence was a doll beside her, a pretty 
child, to be amused and petted ; this Eizpah was a 
woman, the kind of a woman who kept men strong 
and brave and pure-hearted ; and now, she was 
willing to let him go for some one else, for Giles, 
his blood-brother, who had the first right and the 
final right. He patted her hair with his large 
hand, and looked down at her with all his heart in 
his eyes. 

“ Do not mind so much,” he said tenderly, as he 
felt the vibrating of her frame, “you did not think, 
and how could you? I should have understood 
and thought ; I am older in the world’s ways 
that you are. I am not worth a heartache — he is 
a better man than I am, but it is a little hard,” as 
a great wave of self-pity rolled over him, “ to lose 
my mother and my wife at the same time.” 

The voices in the garden were under the win- 
dow and on the stairs outside ; he caught her in his 
arms, and held her as if he could never let her go. 


282 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


and then, pushing her off, escaped from the room 
by another passage. 

When Florence called her, Rizpah was in her own 
room, bending over one of the piles upon the floor. 

“I wish I was dead,” she had moaned in her 
weakness; “I do no good in the world, 1 do 
evil. This is twice that I didn’t think. I believe 
I was born stupid. But I was so sure that nobody 
would ever love my ugly face.” 

Florence burst in aglow with her walk. 

“ WeVe been to see the dear old pastor, but he 
is up on the mountains with some English friends; 
I told the pastoress we had come to say good-bye, 
and she almost wept on my neck.” 

“ I’m tired of travelling; I’m tired of everything, 
I’m tired of being myself,” cried Eizpah, as pas- 
sionately as the child of ten. 

“We would be dreadfully sorry if you were not 
yourself,” consoled Florence, gayly, “ but I like to 
see you worked up ; I like to have you naughty ; it 
makes me feel less wicked.^’ 

Giles’ knock was the next intrusion; he inquired 
for Griffin. 

“ He has started out for the top of somewhere,” 
said Rizpah, intent upon a box cover, “ and he 
said he would rather go alone.” 


^^NEIVS: 


283 


“ He’s horrid again,” cried Florence, petnlantly. 
“ I wish he could stay in one mood half an hour ; 
he has been in twenty-five this morning; and he 
asked us to go climbing with him.’’ 

“ If you were Isabella Bird of Kocky Mountain 
fame he might have accepted your company,” said 
Giles; “as it is he has shoved me off.” 

Kizpah pushed the box cover on, and began to 
roll a bit of twine about her forefinger; what could 
she say to send him ofi*? 

“ Did he say where he was going ? ” 

“ Not a word.” 

The hurried voice, and bent head, revealed noth- 
ing; for an instant he watched the movement of 
her fingers, and then went away. 


XXVII. 

^^wheke’s my mothekT’ 

Giles started out in the afternoon, and did not 
return at supper time; the girls and Mrs. Olmstead, 
wearied with the bustle of the day, were resting 
upon the sofa in the twilight ; Florence’s head was 
upon the shoulder of Mrs. Olmstead, her eyes were 
staring straight ahead as if she were seeing noth- 
ing; the day had been long and hard to her; even 
Kizpah’s allusion to the long drive to Vevay 
brought no enthusiastic response. 

“We may have the same black horses, Florence.” 

“ I shall sit outside this time,” said Florence, 
“ you and Griffin and Mrs. Olmstead may be cooped 
up inside.^^ 

Down-stairs, little Jean’s mother was singing 
her to sleep, the twilight grew into darkness, no 
one suggested the lamp ; it was pleasant to sit with 
still hands and speak or not speak, as they felt in- 
clined; Eizpah had been silent all day. 

( 284 ) 


“ WHEI^E'S MY MOTHER 


285 


It is not like Griffin to stay away like this/’ 
said Mrs. Olmstead, uneasily. “ He was counting 
on a good time together to-day.” 

“Mr. Giles will bring him back/’ said Florence; 
“he is always doing the unexpected. , I wish he 
wouldn’t have moods.” 

“Then he wouldn’t be Griffin,” replied Mrs. 
Olmstead, lightly. 

“ I’m hateful myself, to-night,” began Florence, 
as Eizpah slipped away from them. “ Why is it 
possible to hate a thing so much and yet be it, or 
do it ? It alw'ays gives me pain to have my 
friends begin to love others beside me. It hurts, 
I fear they will lose their love for me — and I know 
they do. I cannot seem to keep love after I get it. 
It is so hard to be willing to be loved less, to take 
the second place after having the first. That has 
happened to me more than once ; I believe it is 
always happening, excepting with mamma and 
darling Pater. And then I hate and despise my- 
self for 'being so wicked and jealous. I think I 
should die if somebody didn’t keep loving me.’’ 

“Somebody always will, never fear,” encouraged 
the bright voice out of the darkness. “ Suppose 
you try to think more about loving than about 
being loved ; it is hard to take the second place 


286 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


after having had the first ; I do not think we take 
it, either, we are pushed into it ; I suppose noth- 
ing in the world hurts like it.” 

Oh, do you feel so, too ? I thought it was 
because I am so wicked.” 

“ It is because you are so natural, child. But if 
we seek the first place, because it is the first place, 
and for no lovelier reason, we need the check, we 
need to be pushed back ; it is a grand thing to 
seek the first place in loving. It would be no 
selfishness for you to say to yourself : ‘ I love her — 
I love him, better than any one else loves her, or 
loves him ; I give myself more than any one else 
does.’ Love your mother better than the others 
do, but do not seek for her to love you best.” 

“ She does,” muttered Florence, wilfully. 

“ It is like the highest Love to love best and 
give most ; and to love for the sake of the other, 
not for the sake of what the other gives ; that is 
loving yourself, not loving the other. You are 
very natural, I am very natural, and our love is a 
part of us, and a very natural part, the strongest 
part, so it has to hurt. It is a way of saying: ‘I 
love myself’ ” 

“ But I do love the other one, I know I do.” 

“ You love so much that you desire the other 


“ WHEREAS MY MOTHER P’* 


287 


one to have the best things, the best friend, even 
if that friend be not yourself — 

“ ]^o, I do not ; I want to be the best friend.’^ 

‘‘ But suppose you are not ; suppose the other 
friend is wiser and less selfish, and more helpful — ” 
“That doesn’t change it; I want to be the 
friend.” 

“ Even if the one you love receive less good 
from you ? ” 

“ Yes.^^ 

“ Do you not see that it is yourself you are lov- 
ing ? ” 

“I do not want to see it ; I want what belongs 
to me.” 

“ What does belong to you ? ” 

“What was mine first. 

“ You may still have all you ever had, all you 
could have, all that being yourself gave you a 
right to — would you have your friend starve 
because you had no bread to give, rather than 
that he should go to another who had bread to 
give, if in this getting from the other he gave 
more love than he ever gave you ? ” 

“Not starve.'^ 

“ But lack— not have enough to thrive on ?” 

“ I might think he had enough from me.” 


288 


RTZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


‘‘But his nature and his need being larger, he 
might know that you could not satisfy him — 

“ But I would want him, all the same.” 

“ Of course you would ; and that isn^t love, 
that is selfishness.” 

“ Well, I am selfish, then.” 

“ Then you must expect to be hurt.” 

“ I am, all the time.” 

“Do you expect to stay selfish ?” 

^ “ I suppose so ; I was made so.” 

“I have heard of people made with crossed 
eyes, but they had them straightened.” 

“ Oh, so would I. My eyes ! ” 

“ And this is only your heart, so it doesn’t mat- 
ter,” laughed Mrs. Olmstead. 

“But, Mrs. Olmstead,” sitting upright in her 
earnestness, “ does God himself want the first 
place in us, and isn’t he jealous ? He says he is.” 

“Yes, he desires the first place and will have 
no other, and he is a jealous God.” 

“ Then why is it wicked for me to be like him?” 

“ Do you think you are like him ?” 

“ I w^ant the first place, and I am jealous,” she 
returned, with wilfulness. 

“ Can you think why he desires and will have 
the first place ? ” 


“ WHEREAS MY MOTHER 


289 


“ Because he wants us to love him best ? 

“That is true ; but why?” 

Florence thought a moment : “ Because he loves 
us, I suppose.” 

“Yes, that is the reason; out of pure love. 
What does his love do ? ” 

“ I do not understand you.” 

“ His love is always giving. 

“Yes.” 

“ Giving what ? ” 

“ Why, giving everything.” 

“ What is the best thing he gives us ? ” 

“ I do not know.” 

“ Yes, you do.” 

“Again she had to pause to think: “I suppose 
you mean — his Son.” 

“Yes, and we cannot take his best giving if 
there is anything in our heart to push it out. This 
giving is so large that it cannot be put into a 
heart that loves itself better, or anything better; 
sorrow for sin must be there, a true sorrow and 
repentance, and love, and faith, and obedience, 
that we may take this best giving; do you not 
see that God must have the first place, that he 
may put the best things into it; if the best things 

are not put into it, you and I are lost forever, for- 
19 


290 


RIZPAITS HERITAGE, 


ever miserable; and he loves ns so that he would 
have ns saved forever, forever happy. Is it not 
love for our sakes ? And is he not jealous for 
our sakes, so afraid that some other will have that 
first place and we shall be lost ? ’’ 

Florence was thinking, and did not reply. 

“Are you willing for your friends to love him 
better than they love yon ? 

“ Oh, yes,’^ in a shocked voice. 

“ Suppose some other can teach and help better 
than you can. We all need help; and he has made 
some of us helpers more than others. Would you 
have your friend lose something of God by choos- 
ing you ? ” 

“ But, can’t I ? — why can’t I help, too ? ” 

“You can, dear; God has made you to be a help- 
er.” 

“ But I don^t know how — I don’t even know 
how to begin.^’ 

“ Could God help us if he were not Himself? ” 

“ No,^^ with hesitating awe. 

“ The first help begins in heing. Then you will 
help just by being yourself. I know girls who do; 
and they would be surprised if I should tell them 
what helpers they are.” 

“ But that makes me think about myself” 


WHEREAS MY MOTHERS 


291 


“ You cannot do it without thinking of yourself; 
but with such a motive it cannot make you selfish 
or self-conscious ; the more you think about Christ, 
love him, obey him, the more you will grow into 
his image ; we begin to be like those we love, and 
are constantly with them, without thinking about 
it ; so, after all, you do not have to think about 
yourself; think of everything that is lovely, and do 
every lovely thing you think of, and, by-and-by, 
some one will say to me : ‘ It does me good to be 
with Florence CheviL’ ” 

Florence sighed : it did her good just to be with 
Mrs. Olmstead. And Eizpah ! But she could not 
help hating Eizpah, when she was jealous of her as 
she had been since Griffin returned, and seemed to 
have forgotten her for Eizpah. 

“I hate and despise myself to-night,’’ she ex- 
claimed, vehemently, and then tearful and sub- 
dued. 

“ I shouldn’t think anybody would love me best. 
I know you lowe Eizpah better than you do me.^’ 

“ 1 love you very differently ; but I love you 
enough.^^ 

“ All is enough, and most is enough ! Oh, I am 
homesick to-night, and I want Pater and mamma, 
and the girls.” 


292 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ Poor little girl/^ said Mrs. Olmstead, “ it is a 
hard way and a long way np, isn’t it ? I’ve been 
on the way a long time, and sometimes I am so 
tired I want to go to Heaven without waiting till 
my work is done ; but heartaches are so good for 
us that our Father cannot let us live without 
them. I do not say this to discourage you, but to 
let you know that old hearts ache as well as young 
ones.” 

A light flashed across the half-open door, foot- 
steps and a whispering startled Mrs. Olmstead to 
her feet. 

Jean’s mother spoke in a frightened voice: 
“ Some one has sent for you at Pastor Hanchette’s 
— the young man was found injured — he had fall- 
en, he was unconscious — he is there — go quickly.” 

“ Giles ? ” cried Giles’ mother, in her consterna- 
tion, thinking only of her son. 

“ No ; the other one ; Mr. Giles is there and has 
sent for you.” 

“Where’s Rizpah?” asked Mrs. Olmstead. 

But Eizpah^s white face was pressed close to 
hers, and both Eizpah’s arms were about her. 

Afterward she told Mrs. Olmstead that for a 
whole week she was not her natural mental or 
physical self; she moved and spoke like one 


“ WHEREAS MY MOTHER 


293 


benumbed, and the iron hand upon her was taken 
off only when with a burst of tears, she could fall 
upon her knees, and pray that the “ dear boy 
might be given back to them again. 

“ I think I did not care at all that first week.’^ 

That night the physician said: “ If he has other 
friends send for them.” 

“His mother,” said Mrs. Olmstead to Giles; “no 
one has more common sense in emergencies.” 

His first conscious utterance was: “Where’s 
my mother?’^ 

“Here I am, darling,” in the voice which had 
comforted him twenty years ago. She kissed his 
forehead, and held his hand, speaking a low, lov- 
ing word once in a while, until he slept contented. 


XXVIIL 


^^THAT SAME HOUE.” 

The mornings were chilly and the mountains 
covered with snow ; Griffin shivered under his 
comforter of eider-down, and asked when he could 
be taken to some warmer climate ; October was 
almost through and no one spoke of going home ; 
physicians advised removal to Montreux for the 
winter ; the milder air would be essential for the 
invalid’s increase in strength ; they gave Mrs. 
Morehouse no hope of a permanent recovery ; the 
lungs and spine were injured, he could never be a 
strong man again. 

He was a splendid specimen of young man- 
hgpd;” said one of them. “ I never sa«v a finer ; he 
may enjoy comfortable health again, with every 
precaution.” 

Very guardedly this verdict was repeated to 
Griffin the first day he went down to the family- 
room ; he evinced no surprise and no disappoint- 
ment. 


( 294 ) 


^^THAT SAME HOUR: 


295 


“ That is better than I thought,’’ he said. 

The white face, the large, luminous eyes, the feeble 
step and weak grasp of the hand she took into her 
own, almost broke Kizpah’s heart; on his couch or 
in his chair he had not revealed his weakness ; the 
mischief had died out of his eyes and his voice, he 
spoke listlessly, all he cared for seemed to be to 
get to Montreux. 

“ I haven’t heard anything about going home,” 
he said after tea, when they had retired to a cor- 
ner of the room, and he was made comfortable 
upon the sofa. 

His mother and Giles were his constant attend- 
ants ; the others came and went at all hours of 
the day. 

The pastor sat reading at a pine table ; his wife 
had gone out with some delicacy to an ailing old 
woman ; the two lived alone in the small chalet, 
for which they paid thirty dollars a year ; walls 
and floors were of unpainted pine, the furniture 
and style of living were as simple as the house. 
A few books were piled upon the table, not a 
picture adorned the walls: the lamp-light made a 
picture of each face. 

“ Because nobody says anything about it,” an- 
swered Giles, it is poetically said to be home 


296 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE, 


where the heart is, and our united heart appears to 
be crowded around you.” 

You are all too good,” was the grateful re- 
sponse, as he touched the hand nearest him ; and 
it happened to be the hand of Florence. 

‘‘We couldnH go,” added Florence. 

“ You can go now ; mother will not go, she has 
promised to stay all winter at Montreux with me, if 
I will let Mr. Morehouse run over for a look at us 
once in a while. He went away before I could 
thank him for bringing her to me.” 

“We do not want to go now,” said Florence. 
“ Eizpah doesn^t, and Giles wmt^ and we will not 
let Mrs. Olmstead.” 

“ How about that school ? ” asked Griffin. 

“ Miss Sharpe is doing well, my place seems to 
be well filled. I am as foolish as the girls, I want 
to stay all winter. Giles has reasoned me into it ; 
he says I must give up that school awhile, now 
that Miss Sharpe is trained to it. And I do feel 
like letting it slip through my fingers ; he says I 
must rest my jubilee year.” 

“ Giles is right,” declared Mrs. Morehouse ; 
“you were growing into an old woman, with the 
care.” 

“ Blossom,” taking her finger into his hand. 


‘^THAT SAME HOUR: 


297 


“ will Pater spare you so long? It will be too jolly 
to have you all stay ; I was not counting on any 
one but Giles/^ 

“ Mamma does not want me to go back alone.” 

“ Not even with a label of your name and age 
and destination pinned to your frock! Mamma is 
right, you shall go back with me. But Eizpah, 
what are you staying for ? ” bringing his eyes to 
the sweet gravity of hers. 

“Because you are all more like ‘home’ to me, 
than any friends I have — if I have any. Mrs. 
Hyer, Aunt Eizpah’s housekeeper, and dear old 
Mr. Snowdon, are the only friends I know well ; I 
am to stay here at boarding-school with Mrs. 
Olmstead.” 

The light in Griffin’s eyes was almost like the 
light of the Florence days ; he sighed in the depths 
of his content, and said weakly and joyfully, 

“ That is all I want.” 

“ We must get off to Montreux as soon as you 
can bear the journey, Griffin,’’ said his mother; “do 
yon know where it is ? ” 

“ Giles and I were there ! How little we expect- 
ed this, old fellow, that day we were on the lake. 
You said you would like to winter there, and shut 
yourself up and work.” 


298 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ And what did you say ? ” 

“ I was as blue as indigo, that day, and didn’t 
want to winter or summer anywhere; but, mother, 
now I have got you back again, I do want to stay 
on this old earth awhile longer.” 

His mother moved under pretence of arranging 
his pillow, but she stooped to kiss his forehead, and 
to call him a “ dear, foolish boy.” She had him 
“ back again,” as she had not had him since a time 
of illness in his boyhood; more than one midnight 
had found them opening their hearts to each other. 

“Griffin is so frank, and such a baby now he is 
ill,” she had explained to Mrs. Olmstead, “that I 
am learning to say everything to him ; he is an ed- 
ucation to me. I have cruelly misjudged him, and 
he has loved me through it all. It is well for Mr. 
Morehouse that he married me before this happened ; 
I could have been satisfied with my boy, if we had 
understood each other.” 

“ But you are not sorry — ” cried Mrs. Olmstead, 
in alarm. 

“ 0 no, not for an instant ; he is goodness it- 
self, the big, dull fellow, and he will only laugh 
when I tell him, and say he doesn’t believe a word 
of it.” 

For a long while Griffin lay listening to the mer- 


^\THAT SAME HOUR:' 299 

ry talk ; they were all so happy to-night, it was a 
pleasure to him to rest his eyes first upon one 
face and then upon another; Eizpah^s sweet seri- 
ousness was very becoming, and the shy gladness 
in Blossom’s eyes was prettier than anything he 
had ever seen in them; his mother had lost her 
nervous ways and her voice its excitability; her 
eyes sought his face, and her hands ministered 
unto him in a fashion he thought must be new, for 
he had never experienced it in his robust days, and 
about his boyhood he had forgotten; he only re- 
membered what a never-ending anxiety and vex- 
ation he had been to her all his mischievous and 
thoughtless days. Mrs. Olmstead’s dimples came 
and went like a girl’s, as something provoked her 
to smile or a repartee, and Giles, his own splendid, 
handsome, devoted Giles, w^as his blood-brother, 
with stronger, and renewed bonds. 

“ I’m a very lucky fellow,” he said at last. 

“You didn’t use to think so,” returned his 
mother. 

“ Oh, I wasn’t then, as I am now; I hadn’t lived 
so long to prove it. I have to believe that my 
life has been saved for something.’’ 

“ Do you know what ? ” asked Florence, 

“ No.” 


300 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“It will come in good time,” said Mrs. Olmstead, 
“ it doesn’t matter if we find out by the day.” 

“ 1 want to find out early enough in the morning, 
to get at it before night,” replied GriflSn, with 
his old ' bluntness. 

“ ‘In that same hour it was given to the Apostles 
what to speak,’” said Mrs. Olmstead; “your Work 
may come that way.” 

“ Where is the preparation, then ? ” was Griffin’s 
quick question. 

“ Where theirs was,” was the quick reply. 


XXIX. 


BLOSSOMS AISTD EEUIT. 

Giles accompanied the ladies down the hill and 
across the green late in the evening ; the moonlight 
was working witchery on the mountains ; they 
were all silent under its spell. 

“Do come in, Giles,” persuaded his mother, at 
the foot of the steps ; “ you do not seem to belong 
to me now-a-days, you have not spent an hour 
with us since that night.” 

“I believe I have forgotten every one but the 
boy.” 

“ Can^t you come in now ? ” 

“ Hardly ; I must help him to bed ; he said he 
would wait until I came ; what a shadow of his 
merry self he is.” 

“ He smiles where he used, to laugh,” said Flor- 
ence. “ I shall be homesick for the old GriflSn until 
he comes back.” 

“ The best part of him will come back,” replied 
Giles. 


( 301 ) 


302 


KIZFAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ Will he be real strong again ? asked Florence, 
eagerly. 

“Never with his old strength.” 

Eizpah passed on np the stairs and stood at the 
table when the others entered ; this night was 
something like that night, two months ago, when 
Giles and Griffin returned from their rambling ; 
he would never be that hilarious Griffin again ; 
something had gone away out of him ; it was the 
last night he had been with them ; he had pulled 
her head down on his arm, asking: “Am I so 
weak, do you think?” To-night she would say: 
“ You are strong, I know.” 

Not a word concerning her had escaped his lips 
during that ten days of delirium ; Giles had 
guessed that she might care to know, and had 
assured her that nothing had been revealed. 

“ Pardon me ; I could not but guess the truth — 
I knew what he was to say to you.” 

“ Oh, that he had never said it,” she cried. “ I 
hate myself because he said it ; I feel that I shall 
never learn to be true.” 

“How were you untrue ?” he asked. 

“ If I had been true, he never could have believed 
for one instant what was not true.” 

“We, men, will dare to believe,” was all he said. 


BLOSSOMS AND FRUIT, 


303 


He had dared, she knew ; and now he dared not 
believe anything. And what was there for him to 
believe? One hour with Griffin had come to be 
more to her than a life-time with him ever could 
be ! Not that she found faults in Giles Olmstead; 
it was only that he was all one fault — self-seeking, 
lie was devoted to Griffin — but what did Griffin 
give in response ? Himself and his fortune ! She 
was irritated with herself for the suspicion; but 
she had learned, how, she would never understand, 
that Giles Olmstead was not — what was he not ? 

Florence and Mrs. Olmstead came up alone ; 
Florence talked eagerly of Montreux, and Mrs. 
Olmstead was hopeful. 

It was the middle of October before the physi- 
cians allowed Griffin to travel. They found the 
new home as pleasant in every respect as the 
chMet at Chateau d’Oex. It was on the side of a 
hill at the edge of Lake Geneva ; the mountains 
were radiant with the softest and brightest tints 
of Autumn, interspersed with peaks of snow and 
jagged, gray rocks. 

Griffin said the foliage was mild compared with 
the American Autumn, and Mrs. Olmstead agreed 
with him. The days, as well as the nights, were 
cold enough for furs and winter clothing ; climb- 


304 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


ing up the trellis roses were in bloom, and down 
the path to the water’s edge, Eizpah found mign- 
onette and nasturtiums. 

She rejoiced in the lake, Florence was enthusi- 
astic over the mountains, Giles found a library, at 
which he got books for a franc a month, and 
planned to read many valuable French works, Mrs. 
Morehouse wrote interminable letters to England, 
and did interminable fancy work, Mrs. Olmstead 
read, wrote and studied, as she did alw^ays and 
everywhere, took lessons of Eizpah in painting 
and studied French with Eizpah’s teacher, a young 
lady who came twice a week and spent the day 
with them ; Griffin lounged upon the sofa, twisted 
his mother’s silks into gay confusion and wound 
her wool, read the newspapers from America, and 
wrote daily to one of the Chevil girls ; he said he 
was learning the art of listening, but he was learn- 
ing a new art, he was learning how to talk to 
Florence. He confided to Eizpah that Blossom 
seemed to be a new creation to him ; and he told 
Blossom herself, and brought a look to her eyes 
that he fain would have kept there, that she was 
not a blossom any longer, for he was finding a 
tiny bit of most delicious fruit hidden away under 
her shyness. 


BLOSSOMS AND FRUIT. 


305 


“Now I am revenged,” she said, lightly, “for 
what you said at Florence.” 

“ It is a sweet revenge to me,^’ he retorted. 
“ Eevenge some more.^^ 

“I’ll tell mamma ; she used to wonder how I 
could bear your teazing.” 

“ Don’t I ever teaze you now ? ” 

“You never say such hard things.” 

“ You say them to me instead.” 

“ What do I say ? ” 

“ You say I am not like the other Griffin.” 

“ I wouldn^t have you for anything.” 

“Any more than I would like to have you like 
the other Florence.” 

The seriousness was deepening under the light- 
ness of their tones. Florence was glad to keep her 
eyes upon her work. 

“ Blossom, I didnT half appreciate you,” half in 
raillery, half in tenderness. 

The dear home name from Griffin’s lips was 
very sweet to her ; it seemed to enwrap her in all 
that love across the Atlantic. 

“Yes, you did ; there wasn’t anything in me to 
appreciate.” 

“ I know this ; I find something new now every 
day.” 


20 


306 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


“ Oh, I hope thaf s true ! she exclaimed, earnest- 

ly- 

“ True that I find it, or true that it is there ? ” 
he asked, mischievously. 

“ True that it is there/’ with indignant protest. 

“Mrs. 01m stead says it is there, and Kizpah— 
and they know ; they are not blinded by any — 
prejudice.’^ 

“Mrs. Olmstead couldn’t be blinded; she sees 
all the way through ; but I’m not deep, like Eiz- 
pah.” 

“ I don’t want you to be deep like Eizpah or 
anybody ; you are sweet and you are womanly — ” 

“ Don’t you think really,” lifting her eyes in 
grave appeal, “ that I am as vain as I used to be ? ” 

“ I don’t believe you are vain at ail.” 

“ Yes, I am ; I feel it in me.” 

“ You are not proud and airish any longer.” 

“ I hope I’m not ; how disagreeable I must have 
been.” 

“ Tell me, Blossom, what has changed you ? ” 

“ Everything,” she answered, promptly. 

“ You have changed as suddenly as spring 
changes into summer ; a few warm days and rainy 
days brings it out. That is what’s the matter 
with me ! Everything is changing me.” 


BLOSSOMS AND FRUIT, 


307 


‘‘I was satisfied with myself before I knew you.” 

“And I turned you inside out and told you 
what a beautiful little fraud you were.” 

“ I did feel like a fraud ; it seemed so dreadful 
to be a blossom and not grow into fruit.” 

“But you were not satisfied with me? ” 

“ Not altogether,” fixing her laughing eyes 
upon his rueful face. 

“You never told me so.” 

“ I told you you were rough and rude.” 

“That was on the outside of me ; you never 
told me the sins of my heart.” 

“ How could I ? I didn’t see them.” 

“ Somebody else did.” 

'‘Kizpah?” 

“Yes, Eizpah.” 

“ She has helped you — then.” 

“ More than anybody — more than Giles.” 

Eizpah was his “helper,” then; not herself; 
what was she to him, after all ? Some one to say 
loving words to, to praise and flatter — but he was 
so sincere ! 

“ She might have said ten times harder things 
and not have spoken half the truth.” 

“ How could she like you, then, if she believed 
you were so bad ? ” she inquired, wilfully. 


308 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


‘‘She liked me because I was ‘so bad ’ and she 
could help me ; I was a missionary field to her ; 
the missionaries love the heathen.” 

“ But you were not a heathen — you were a 
member of the church.” 

“ A dwarfed member ! I hadn’t grown any for 
a good while ; she set' me to growing.” 

“ She is too busy to cultivate you now.” 

“ She’s awfully busy ; she leaves me to your 
tender mercies.” 

“ But I don’t know how ; I’m sure you help me 
ten times more than I ever can help you.” 

“Blossom, dear, you do not talk wisely to me, 
you do not often tell me anything that I do not 
know ; but you help me in the sweetest way — by 
being yourself! ” 

Just what Mrs. Olmstead had said. When she 
wrote the conversation all out to her mother (and 
she thought she remembered every word), she 
told her that for a minute she was too happy to 
breathe. 

Emily said that Florence’s letters were reports 
of conversations ; and Pater wrote that she had be- 
come a fine reporter. 

There was a plan in Pater’s head that he had 
divulged to no one but his wife, and that was that 


BLOSSOMS AND FRUIT. 


309 


they should all spend the month of May in Flor- 
ence. 

“ There’s nothing so good for our olive plants, 
wife, as May sunshine in Florence.” 

“ I do want to go over and see,” replied his wife. 

And wise Pater dia not ask her what she wish- 
ed to “see.” 


XXX. 


SPECIAL AND DEFIOTTE.’’ 

One March afternoon Giles came from a climb- 
ing expedition with a handful of new flowers; they 
grew in heights unattainable to the girls ; a peas- 
ant gave the name as la file avant la mere. Finding 
Eizpah alone, he laid them in her lap. 

“ How new ! And how pretty ! ” she exclaimed, 
“ we must paint them before they wither.” 

“ I am glad that I can bring you something from 
the heights. 

“ This is not the first time.” 

“ Was it a flower the other time ? ” 

‘‘ It was something you said.’’ 

“ Something worth remembering,” he said, ban- 
teringly. 

“ I have remembered it longer than five years; 
but nonsense clings to us sometimes.” 

“ Is it the only thing that I said five years ago 

that you remember ?” 

( 310 ) 


SPECIAL AND DEFINITE^ 


311 


“No,” a smile breaking over her face, “you said 
you were chilled through, from a drive once.” 

“And you made me a cup of coffee! Did I say 
it that time ? 

“You said the coffee was the best you ever 
tasted 1 Yes,” in a laughing tone, “that was it.” 

“ I will take the flowers away if you do not tell 
me.” 

“Lifting her two hands full, she said, “Take 
them.^^ 

“You care for them too much; I am sure you 
will tell me.” 

She answered seriously: “ Aunt Eizpah told you 
that you must live by faith ; and you answered as 
quick as a flash, “ I do. I should die if I didnT.” 

He laughed at the remembrance of it, and said 
that times had not changed with the years. 

“ I passed Griffin and Blossom with a basketful 
of spring flowers, primroses, violets, lilies and 
everything else piled high ; they wander about 
hand in hand like two children.” 

“I am very glad,” said Eizpah, thinking that 
his call was always “ Blossom,” and rarely, if ever, 
“ Eizpah.” 

“ I do not think — ” speaking slowly, “ that one 
always knows — what he wants — most.” 


312 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“ How can it be proven ? ” 

He was standing before her, bending over the 
flowers in her lap, picking them np one by one, 
and arranging them with studied care. 

“ To different people — differently.” 

‘‘How would it be proved to you — for in- 
stance } ” he asked easily, pulling off a petal. 

“ I do not know — I did not say that it had been 
proven.” 

“ I know how it would be proven to me.” 

At this instant, relieving Eizpah from the reply 
she was not ready to make, Mrs. Morehouse entered 
and came to them, exclaiming at the beauty and 
profusion of the flowers. 

“Take as many as you care for,” said Eizpah. 
“Mr. Giles has selected the prettiest for me to 
paint.” 

He laid them in her hand, and she brought her 
painting materials, and seated herself at one of the 
open windows. Becoming too absorbed to notice 
the entrance of the others, she heard not a word of 
the conversation, until Blossom’s voice in per- 
plexity aroused her. 

“ In a book I read lately — I was reading aloud 
to Griffin, I read : ‘ Every day do some special and 
definite work for Christ.’ He could not make it 


SPECIAL AND DEFINITE: 


313 


very plain to me. He said since he had seen 
Pastor Hanchette’s simple life on his pine floor, 
and eating at a pine table, it had seemed beautiful 
to him, to do a special and definite work like his, 
teaching and preaching, and visiting the poor and 
sick, surrounded by such wonderful things in na- 
ture, and loving such a pure, helpful life ; it seem- 
ed grand to him. But I cannot do that ; and the 
book seemed to mean, girls like me. 1 do try, but 
my days are made up of good times ; I could give 
money, but that is only one special thing ; you 
said the tiniest thing can be done for him ; but is 
that special and definite work? I do not under- 
stand it at all. And it said : ‘ Every day.’ If I 
could do something once a month I’d be glad.” 

The silk purse in Mrs. Morehouse’s fingers drop- 
ped into her lap ; what questions these girls were 
always bringing up ; but Maria never seemed at a 
loss ; she thought it was encouraging too much 
self-contemplation, and everybody said, physicians 
and ministers, that that was morbid. She knew 
how blue she became as soon as she began to 
think about herself. 

“ Special ! ” repeated Mrs. Olmstead. 

Eizpah listened while she played with her 
brush. 


314 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


‘‘ Peculiar, extraordinary, different from others. 
Is that the kind of work we are set to do ? Chris- 
tians are a peculiar people and different from 
others.” 

“Now, Maria, I beg of you,” insisted Mrs. More- 
house, “ don’t try to make Florence into a peculiar 
person ; I shall think it my duty to write to her 
mother. She will be spoiled for society.” 

“0 no, Mrs. Morehouse,” resisted Florence, “I 
shall have charming manners, like hers.” , 

“Not charming for a girl of nineteen ; I know 
your mother will not like it.” 

“ I’ll tell mamma ; please what else, Mrs. 01m- 
stead ? ” 

“I’m glad Maria doesfft have all girls to train.” 

“Pm glad she has me!” was the prompt 
response. 

“ And me,” added Kizpah. 

“You will both have to go into society to get 
some polish.” 

“ There’s time enough,” said Florence, “ I’m 
waiting for Budget and Bee.” 

“ You will be too old then.” 

“As old as I am,” said Kizpah, beginning to 
work again. 

“ You are settled down into building churches 


SPECIAL AND DEFINITE: 


315 


and things ; you do not take a woman’s interest 
in life." 

“ Are you anxious about my future ? " 

“ I do not believe you have any — excepting a 
dull life of charity and books." 

“ What a prospect ! ” Rizpah laughed merrily. 
“ May I not paint a little and travel ? " 

“ You will do such things fast enough ; but I 
meant a woman’s legitimate, natural future.’’ 

“ Mrs. Olmstead desires to make a teacher of 
me ; a dean of some woman’s college." 

“ My dear, I never even looked so.” 

“ A nurse then, in a Woman’s Hospital." 

“ That would suit you exactly." 

Eizpah thought that it would not suit her at 
all. 

“ Florence, I’ll tell you about two girls I know 
at home. They were with me two years ; Carrie 
and Mamie. Mamie has consecrated herself to 
the loving service of Christ ; Carrie has never 
thought about it. I spent a month at Carrie’s 
father’s and studied them both thoroughly. They 
both love study, both love to make themselves 
pretty and agreeable, both love company and both 
love housekeeping. Carrie purposes to take up 
Geology ; she has a curious mind, and she cares 


316 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


to be able to talk about what other people talk 
about; she likes to be considered ‘cultured/ not 
too blue, but a little blue ; she thinks it becoming 
to her. Mamie likes these things, too ; she is just 
as ‘natural’ as Carrie, but she pauses to think 
about it ; while Carrie rushed off to purchase the 
latest Geology, Mamie considered. Her time is 
not her own ; she has given it away ; shall she 
take this devoted time to study in ? Is it the best 
use she can make of half an hour between two and 
half past every afternoon ? This earth was made 
for her to live in while she worked — curiously and 
perfectly fashioned ; surely it is worth her careful 
study. What shall she do with the knowledge 
after she* has earned it ? Like any other earnings 
it must be hoarded, used, or spent. Will not this 
knowledge teach her about the Architect ; may 
not some of his will concerning her special work 
be wrought out through this knowledge ? To 
learn his will and do it she has given her life ; 
she has given it as one gives his life to the science 
of Astronomy ; why should she not be as patient 
and painstaking as Herschel and Newton? 

To grow in grace, one has to grow in knowledge. 

To do God’s will, one has to learn it; and the 
whole creation is the school-room, and every crea- 


SPLCIAL AND DEFINITE.' 


317 


t(Kl tiling a chapter in one of its books. Before 
Carrie brings her book home, Mamie has decided 
to study Geology with her half an hour every after- 
noon. To Mamie, it is a part of her special work. 
To Carrie what it is, a remark I heard one day ex- 
plains : ‘ 0, Mamie, I was so glad I knew about 
the crust of the earth, when Fred Sawyer was talk- 
ing last night, and so glad he appealed to me, for I 
had a chance to air my bit of knowledge.^ 

“ Carrie says that housekeeping, when brought to 
perfection, is an accomplishment; Mamie thinks it 
brought to perfection, because a keeper at home, 
and a maker of home, is what her Fathers child 
should be, and that women may minister unto the 
Lord by making happy homes for his people. Car- 
rie remembers that some one said that she was the 
prettiest, and most tastefully dressed girl at the 
entertainment last night; Mamie thought, as she 
dressed herself, that the Lord’s disciples and work- 
ers had a right, and his permission, to be the 
brightest, sweetest, neatest, most refined and 
tasteful girls in all the world. His service 
taught them every refinement. Carrie loves to 
be popular, and to count her five hundred friends ; 
Mamie prays for each new friend, asking that 
her own unconscious influence may lead her to 


318 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


think of, and work for the very best and happiest 
things.” 

The face of Florence grew brighter with every 
word ; Mrs. Morehouse listened, puzzled and half 
pleased. 

“ I never understood before, said Eizpah. “ I see 
that every single thing may be made a special work.” 

“Now about ‘definite.’ Fixed, exact, precise. 
May not our special work be fixed, fixed in our 
purpose, fixed in our lives, as fixed as Newton’s or 
HerschePs ? Exact ; precisely agreeing with a 
standard. 

“ Our Standard, you know. We have but one. 
Our special and definite work to-day is exactly 
what we are doing where we are^ 

“ And I have been thinking all day that I wasn’t 
doing anything, and never had done anything;” 
replied Florence. “ Griffin said — 

“Griffin is a close observer,” remarked Mrs. 
Morehouse, netting the beads into her purse, and 
wishing she had not interrupted what Griffin 
“ said.” 

She was making purses to send to England. 
Griffin said his mother was working for those little 
Indians half the time; he wished he were a little 
Indian himself. 


SPECIAL AND DEFINITE P 


319 


“Maria, you are spoiling these girls for the 
world; IVe told you that before,” observed Mrs. 
Morehouse, positively. 

“Which world asked Mrs. Olmstead, and 
Griffin entered in time to join in their merry laugh. 

“ Mamie is as full of life as Carrie, and equally 
as attractive, if that is what you mean, and — 
Mamie is engaged and Carrie isn’t,” she added, 
mischievously. “I do not think I am spoiling 
them for the life that now isy if that is what you 
intend by ‘the world.’” 

“You know what I mean,^^ said Mrs. Morehouse, 
in real vexation. “ I cannot put things as you do 
— you always seem to have the best of it ; but I 
have my own opinion still. Florence, I would like 
to take you home with me.” 

“ I’m at boarding-school,” replied Florence, 
demurely. “ I didn’t know why I stayed ; I 
couldn’t give Pater any real reason, only that I 
wanted to; but I see a dozen reasons now.” 

Mrs. Morehouse rocked back and forth, her fin- 
gers moving rapidly ; she rocked, knitted, and 
talked by the hour ; the students, with their books, 
usually escaped to another room. 

The floor of this favorite sitting-room was un- 
carpeted, the wood was of unpainted wliite, 


320 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


checked in squares of black walnut ; the stairs 
were all of stone, Griffin said they were a relic of 
barbarism, noisy and cold ; the small stove was of 
porcelain ; tables, chairs, sofas, were of odd and 
handsome make ; the curtains were of damask, 
several fine oil paintings adorned the walls. Flor- 
ence wrote to Bee that they were altogether more 
elegant than at Chateau d’ Oex, and she thought 
it must be because of the luxurious Mrs. More- 
house. 

As Eizpah gave the finishing touch to her work, 
Giles and his book (Griffin said when you saw 
Giles, you saw the latest book from the library) 
came up behind her. 

“ That is perfect,” he exclaimed, in a tone of 
warm admiration, “is it mine ? ” 

“ If you care — it is small return for the flowers.” 

“ I will not take it as a return for anything.” 

“ A free-will offering, then.” 

“ Let me add a legend,” he said, as the inspira- 
tion seized him ; with her pencil, he wrote under- 
neath upon the rough paper : “ The success of the 
greater part of things, depends upon knowing how 
long it takes to succeed.” 

“ How long does it take ? ” 

“Until you succeed.” 


SPECIAL AND DEFINITE^ 


321 


Who said that — first ? ” 

Some Frenchman/^ said Griffin, coming to her 
and looking down upon her work. 

“You never did anything as pretty as that for 
me.’' 

“Nor for any one else ; it’s the prettiest little 
thing I ever did/^ 

21 


XXXI. 


"’KOBODY KNOWS.’’ 

Who could have believed that the next day 
would bring a snow storm ? All the more cheer- 
less they found it because of the sunshine and 
flowers and out-of-door life of the month past. 
Griffin grumbled and shivered, declaring that it 
was the last winter he would spend in Switzerland. 
His sofa was moved nearer the fire, and Blossom 
was persuaded to bring her writing and work to 
the foot of it, while his mother’s rocker was sta- 
tioned art its head ; he was moody and low-spirited, 
and coughed, and looked so pale that his mother’s 
heartache returned in full force. 

“ Griffin, England will not be the place for you.” 

I should think not ; who ever thought of liv- 
ing in that dismal country? ” 

“You know I must.” 

“ I am not married to Mr. Morehouse.” 

“ But you belong to me,” she returned, nothing 

daunted by the quiet resolution of his voice. 

( 322 ) 


NOBODY knows:- 


323 


“You forget that I am twenty-one,” he said, 
catching at her spool of green silk, and beginning 
to unwind it. 

“ Now Griffin, don’t break my heart.” 

Florence’s head was bent over her writing ; 
she had described Griffin’s “large, weary eyes” 
(she called them “ homesick ”), his petulant man- 
ner, his quick, dry cough, his mother’s handsome 
morning dress and the style in which her hair was 
arranged, quoting Giles’ serious comment upon it, 
that ancient sculptors had eighteen ways of dress- 
ing Minerva’s hair, and this morning they might 
find a most becoming nineteenth. 

“Mother, I suppose it will break your heart, as 
you call it — excuse me, I’m savaget his morning — 
but I have decided where to spend next winter, if 
I spend it on this terrestrial sphere.” 

It was fully a moment before she gathered cour- 
age to ask: “ Where ? ” 

“ In Colorado,” 

“0,' Griffin!” with the prelude of a small 
scream. 

“You will make it easier and happier for us 
both not to oppose it ; if you cannot go with me, 
please allow me to go in peace.” 

“ Griffin, you are cross this morning,” in a tear- 


324 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


ful voice, ‘‘you were so generous and unselfish 
while you were sick, and now you are thinking of 
yourself again.” 

“ Pray, whom should I think of ? ” he asked, 
furiously; “if I care to live, and naturally I do 
care, that is the place for me.” 

“ Without your mother ? ” in affectionate expos- 
tulation. 

“ My mother has her home and her husband,” 
he said, more gently. 

“You cannot go alone ? ” 

“ I always have Giles ; he is mother and wife in 
one ; do not be anxious ; I could not have a better 
friend ; in sickness and in health I am satisfied 
with his care and comradeship.” 

The rocker moved back and forth ; the obstinate 
expression he knew so well settled about her lips 
and in her eyes ; why was it that they could not 
understand each other as they did in those days 
that she watched his very breath ? 

“ Mother, forgive me ; I can never forget this 
winter with you ; it has given me a new idea of 
what mothers are for ; but you must allow me to 
judge for myself in a matter of life and death.” 

The tenderness and gentleness of his voice and 
words brought her lips to his forehead ; she was 


NOBODY knows: 


325 


conquered. Her new husband had said to himself 
that she was the easiest woman in the world to 
manage, if one knew how ; he knew how. 

With a faintness at her heart Florence was writ- 
ing the word “Colorado.” At this distance Colo- 
rado seemed at the ends of the earth. 

“ Are you writing home ? ” he asked, watching 
her pen; “tell Bee Pm going West; I haven’t for- 
gotten that day at Galileo’s Tower ; perhaps that 
is the reason I tumbled down into that horrible 
chasm.’^ 

“ Griffin, I’ll go away, if you talk so ! ” cried his 
mother, in distress. “You make light of every- 
thing.” 

“ You mean that light is brought out of every- 
thing,” he answered seriously. 

“ I’m so worked up that I don’t mean anything; 
yesterday I was so happy, and to-day everything 
is turned around, and changed.” Her mother was 
sufficiently unnnerved to be both pathetic and pro- 
voked. 

Florence echoed the words ; she had no heart 
to finish her letter, and her fancy work was 
even more distasteful ; under his half closed lids, 
Griffin was noting the changes in her eyes and 
lips; like a child, her innocent, wistful face was 


326 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE 


telling its own story of surprise and disappoint- 
ment. 

“ Blossom, dear,^’ he said, smiling, as she lifted 
her face, ‘‘tuck this eider-down affair under my 
shoulder.” 

Mrs. Olmstead sat writing at a table, to one of 
her many “girls;” Giles and his book were at an- 
other table at the end of the room; Kizpah was 
hovering over the porcelain stove, alternately work- 
ing and reading. 

“ Who ever heard of red snow ? ” she asked, 
dropping her book to take up her work, “ what a 
sight these mountains would be, covered with red 
snow ! ” 

“ Travellers used to be mystified by such an ap- 
pearance,” said Giles, who had a way of replying 
to Rizpah’s questions; and this question seemed 
to demand his immediate and undivided attention, 
for he left his corner, and brought his book to the 
fire. 

“ But it wasn’t snow, was it?” 

“ It was tiny plants on the surface of the snow ; 
the coloring matter in their cells, instead of the 
usual green, is a bright red. Did you ever hear of 
a shower of fiesh and blood ? ” 

“ No,” from GriflSn in his interested tone. 


NOBODY knows: 


327 


Eizpah’s work seemed to demand her immediate 
and undivided attention ; Griffin and herself were 
the only good listeners this morning. 

‘‘ Ignorant, and superstitious people have regard- 
ed them as omens of evil; but the red coloring mat- 
ter is the cause of such phenomena ; it is like coag- 
ulated blood, and quite a sufficient cause to be 
frightened at, I think, if one were superstitious.^' 

“And who isn’t ? ” questioned Mrs. Vanderveer. 
“ I'd be afraid to live in such a region if I were 
ignorant.” 

“I wish I knew something of the vegetable 
kingdom," said Eizpah, “it becomes more and more 
interesting to me. Mrs. Olmstead, we must have 
botany in our school this summer.” 

“ Where do you suppose our school will be ? ” 
asked Mrs. Olmstead. “Oh, if I could only get 
some of my girls here ! ” 

“Two are tantalizing enough!" cried Griffin. 
“Wait until we are rid of these two on our 
hands ” 

“ IVe read of something else to interest you. Miss 
Eizpah,” began Giles, when Griffin interrupted: 

Make her study it, boy; don’t make life too easy.” 

“ A species of lichen in the Desert of Tartary 
is found not attached to any substance, and is 


328 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


driven by the wind from place to place for the nour- 
ishment of any man or beast who may chance to 
need it ; it varies in size from a pin^s head to a 
small nut.” 

‘‘ That is for lazy folks,” commented Giles. “ IVe 
read of those tropical fellows sunning themselves 
under a bread-fruit tree, and not getting up to 
pick it up as it fell, but wait until it dropped into 
their mouths.” 

‘‘ Is that what you are going to Colorado for ? ’’ 
asked Florence. 

“The mould on bread, the rust on grain, are 
really plants,” continued Giles, who was deter- 
mined to give a lecture in the line of the vegetable 
kingdom, “and the rust on a certain kind of rye is 
a valuable medicine.’^ 

“ That is the kind of things I like to know 
about,” said Eizpah, with enthusiasm, “the tiny, 
common things, what they are, and what they are 
good for.” 

“ Do you know what a spore is ?” Giles questioned. 

“No ; haven’t you discovered that I do not 
know anything ? ” 

“Mother is a kind of a spore,” he returned, 
scrutinizing his mother with severe seriousness, 
“they know no rest until all decaying matter 


NOBODY knows: 


329 


within their reach is removed, and then their life- 
work is ended.” 

“ She has the promise of a long life, then,” com- 
mented Griffin, who had recovered his good hu- 
mor since his plan had been broken to his mother. 

“A fungus, fully developed, sends off immense 
quantities of exceedingly minute spores ; they are 
not true seed ; they float about until they discover 
some spot to settle down and grow in ; as long as 
there is no refuse to be removed, they have noth- 
ing to do but wait ; but as soon as the smallest 
quantity is discovered, down they settle, and grow 
amazingly, consuming it all ; they thrive upon it, 
their work is done.” 

“But what becomes of them?"' asked Eizpah ; 
forgetting the work in her Angers. 

“ As eacffi little plant reaches its maturity, it 
sends off its own legion of spores ; if the refuse 
matter is diminishing, fewer of the spores find a 
spot to grow, and when all is devoured by the 
growth of the spores, they start on their floating 
pilgrimage again, until they find new occupation, 
as mother will do, when you girls are taken care of ; 
there are always girls to be devoured.” 

“ I wonder how we shall end ? ” remarked Flor- 


ence. 


330 


RTZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


‘‘ Don’t feel like ending yet,” remonstrated Grif- 
fin, “ half a century from now will be time to think 
of that ; you will be a spore yourself some day ; 
isn’t there some decaying substance in me for you 
to light upon and thrive under ? ” 

“How can I be upm and under at the same 
time ? ” she retorted, merrily. 

“ Mother,” exclaimed the lecturer, “ these young 
folks are making light of my serious remarks ; 
they are encroaching upon the vegetable kingdom 
with specimens of the animal.” 

“ I thought you wanted us to moralize,’^ defend- 
ed Griffin, “ and it’s easier to begin at home.” 

“More satisfactory, also,^^ excused the lecturer. 

“ The spores do not bear fiowers ? asked Eiz- 
pah. “I thought every green thing bore a flower.” 

“ Ferns do not.” 

“ And the common grass,” said Florence. 

“ The grass bears seed.” 

“You have heard of Timothy seed,” said Giles, 
“ you country girl. Plants are either inside 
growers, or outside growers ; the forest trees 
belong to the exogens ; the palm tree and the 
grasses belong to the endogens.” 

“ The grasses ! Are there so many kinds of 
grasses ? inquired Eizpah. 


NOBODY knows:'' 


331 


“ Botanists include wheat, rye and Indian corn 
among the grasses. Do you know a grass that 
grows fifty or sixty feet in height ? 

‘‘It must be a tree.'’ 

“ It is the bamboo.” 

“We didn’t guess all the trees, cried Florence, 
Buddenly, “ wouldn’t that be a lesson in botany ? ” 

“ Euskin speaks — ” Giles would not be thrown 
aside in his lesson in botany by any nonsense, “of 
the humility and cheerfulness of the grass. 

“ A sight of it would make me cheerful,” 
groaned the occupant of the sofa. 

“ Eizpah, did we guess the tell-tale tree ? 
asked Florence. 

“ It doesn’t deserve a place among the trees,” 
said Eizpah. 

“It’s the maiden hair fern,” guessed Griffin. 
“ Eizpah knows she can trust me with a secret.” 

“ Did she ever ? ” asked Florence. “ Oh, I must 
tell you some of Budget’s new proverbs ; they are 
too ridiculous : ‘ Look at the clock before you tell 
the time,^ as Peter the Great was fond of quoting. 
Bee wrote - them to me,” searching among her 
papers. “ ‘ The man who keeps his eyes shut, is 
always in the dark,’ as Peter the hermit said to his 
grandfather. ‘ Wax your iron before you iron 


332 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


your shirt/ as Queen Victoria taught the Princess 
Eoyal. ‘ Keep your temper, your word, and your 
secret,’ as ’tis writ in the Koran.” 

“ Good ! cried Giles. “ Tell her that an old 
definition of a proverb is: ‘ shortness, sense, and 
salt.’ ” 

“ Can’t you make one ? ” suggested Florence. 

“There isn’t a bit of originality in me ; I learned 
a good French proverb yesterday : ‘ Every man 
must go to the mill with his own sack.’ ” 

Mrs. Morehouse was rocking back and forth (to 
Griffin’s great annoyance) and working as rapidly 
as she rocked ; three things she could do with 
equal rapidity: rock, work and talk. GriflSn 
growled to himself that if the rocking continued 
all day on that hard floor he would be a raving 
maniac before night. 

“ I hate snow storms in spring,” he grumbled. 
“ I hate this being pent up in -doors.” 

“Mrs. Morehouse,” Rizpah arose, “my chair by 
the fire is so comfortable, will you not exchange 
with me for awhile ? ” 

“ I believe I am shivering.” 

“ I have been selfish, sitting so near the fire.^^ 

“ 0 no, I wanted to stay near Griffin.^^ 

She arose, and began to push the rocker towards 


NOBODY knows: 


333 


the stove, but by a deft motion pretending to mis- 
interpret the movement, Eizpah seated her in her 
own chair, and to the satisfaction of every one in the 
room, and with a sigh of relief from the sofa, 
placed herself in the rocker. 

“We’ll do well not to quarrel, shut up here to- 
gether, all day,” said Griffin. “ I wish it would 
snow red for a change.”. 

“ I have something to propose ! ” Eizpah cried, 
delighted with her inspiration. “ Mr. Giles must 
tell us something that will be new, unknown until 
that moment, to every one of us ; if any one knows 
it already, he must try again.” 

“Splendid!” exclaimed Griffin, “ but he’ll do it 
in a minute and a half; we will all be honest; start 
ahead, old fellow.” 

“ In what line ? ” 

“In the line of our ignorance.” 

“Well.’* Giles looked around; every face was 
turned to him. “ On the tomb of Quintin Mart- 
sys, in the Cathedral of Antwerp, in letters of 
gold are inscribed : ‘ Connubial love made him an 
Apelles.’” 

“ I knew that,” said Eizpah. 

“ I didn’t,” said Florence. 

“ The ladies in the seventeenth century seldom 


334 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


washed their faces, because water was considered 
bad for the complexion.” 

“ I know that/’ cried Florence, merrily. 

“ You know it now, or you did know it ? ” asked 
Giles, determined not to be caught. 

“ I did know it,” she answered. “ I am not quick 
enough to evade like that.” 

“ Or wicked enough,” added Griffin ; “ set a thief 
to catch a thief.” 

“ There are people in Alaska who have no name 
as a race, but call themselves Mutes, which doesn’t, 
however, mean speechless; their only religious 
idea consists in a belief in evil spirits.” 

“ They would be afraid of a red shower,” said 
Florence. “ I never heard of them.” 

“ I have,” said Mrs. Olmstead. 

“ Mother, it is hardly fair for you to be here,” 
said Giles. ‘‘ The memoir of Maria Edgeworth — 
butof course you know that — ” 

“Tell me.” 

“The minutes of her days were regulated ac- 
cording to inflexible rules.” 

“ Oh, she knows that,” exclaimed Florence, “ per- 
haps that is where she learned it.” 

“The population of the United States outnumbers 
thatof the United Kingdom by twenty-five millions.” 


^^NOBODY KNOWS,^^. 


335 


Mrs. Morehouse laughed: “Mr. Morehouse told 
me that.^’ 

“ You see, Miss Rizpah, what you have set me 
to do,’^ he cried, in comical despair. “ I must read 
up; Pve been reading poetry lately.” 

“We know poetry,” said Florence, “but we 
don^t know French poetry. 

“ The frontier line between France and Germa- 
ny is more distinctly marked than that of any two 
countries ; the frontier line crosses every road at 
right angles.” 

“ As if I didn’t know that,” announced GriflSn. 
After a second of hesitation Giles took out his 
watch and inspected it gravely. 

“Oh, we don’t know how watches are made,” 
said Florence. 

“ It is exactly seven minutes and four seconds 
past twelve ; did any of you know that ? ” 

A burst of laughter was the only reply. 

“ Eizpah, you’ve got your match,’^ cried Griffin, 
“ and if I had told you that, I would have told you 
something you do know.” 

Mrs. Morehouse was swaying back and forth in 
her chair, accommodating herself to an imaginary 
rocker ; she said, reflectively: “ I suppose each of 
us could tell something nobody knows.” 


336 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


“ Nobody knows how my back aches,” said Grif- 
fin, squirming under his eider-down coverlid. 

“ Nobody knows when I awoke in the snow how 
I wanted to fly home and see Pater, and mamma, 
and Budget, and Bee, and Bud,” said Florence, 
plaintively. 

“ Now I come to think of it you are good to stay 
with us,” said Griffin, “ what makes you ?” 

‘‘ Nobody knows,” laughed Florence. I suspect 
one reason was I didn’t want to go home alone.” 

“ Nobody knows how I want to get back to Eng- 
land.” 

“Wait till my stepfather comes after you.” 

“He will wait, considerate man, until I speak 
the word.” 

“Nobody knows what a rest my jubilee year is 
to me,” remarked the lady of nearly half a century. 

“ Nobody knows !” quoted Giles, “ but I will not 
quote it, it does not apply.” 

“ Nobody knows the trouble I have,” quoted Eiz- 
pah, “ don^t say that.” 

“I hope we all know the comfort of the rest of 
it,’^ said Mrs. Olmstead, in her sweet, grave way. 
No one spoke the words ; to each it held its own 
comfort : 

“ Nobody knows but Jesus,” 


XXXII. 


BEFOEE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED. 

“ After all said and dcgie/^ exclaimed Giles, 
coming out of his big French volume as the dusk 
darkened its learned pages, “ who is not revered 
and loved more for what he is than for what he 
does ? ” Eizpah wondered if he knew what he 
was himself, if he understood the nature of the 
something that had built a barrier between herself 
and himself. 

Having knitted the last bead into her purse 
with a sleepy yawn, Mrs. Morehouse, early in the 
afternoon, had betaken herself to her room for her 
afternoon nap. Mrs. Olmstead had continued her 
writing of the morning, Griffin and Blossom had 
put their heads together over dozens of old letters 
from “the girls,” and Eizpah had read and written 
out a chapter in the French story book her teacher 
had recommended ; Blossom’s laugh and Griffin’s 

remarks alone had broken the quiet of the stu- 
22 ( 337 ) 


338 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


dent’s room. GrifEn was wishing that he were out 
in the woods cutting wood, when Giles shut his 
book and came to the fire. 

“ Not many people do much,” replied Griffin. 

“ But many people are loved and revered,’^ said 
Blossom ; “why I revere ever so many people ; I 
could write quite a list.” 

“Girl fashion,” muttered Griffin. And then, 
after a moment, he lifted his head and tossed off 
the coverlid with a gesture of impatience. 

“ I wish something wouldn't beat about in my 
brain all the time ; I don’t know where I heard it, 
and I devoutly wish I never had : 

‘ It may be that never again 
I shaU march with the plow or the sword.’ ” 

“You haven’t done much marching with either, 
have you ? ” asked Florence, provokingly. 

“ I wish somebody would tell a story, to keep 
me from jumping out of my skin.” 

“ I wish your mother would come and make 
you behave,” said Florence. “Let somebody tell 
us about the hardest time in their lives ; I like 
that better than the telling of happy times.” 

“Byway of contrast,” said Griffin, “as gentle 
natured boys love stories of adventures. I might 


BEFORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED, 


339 


tell the story of to-day ; it has been one fight 
from morning until this minute ; I’ve been wrest- 
ling with myself and neither of us can get the 
victory.^’ 

“You look worn out,” laughed Florence, deter- 
mined not to take his mood seriously. 

The snow was still falling, mountains and lake 
were shrouded in gloom ; Grifiin was shivering and 
the two girls were huddling around the stove. 

“ When we felt like this at home we used to 
have games,” said Florence, “but then we were 
children.” 

“We are not very much grownup now,” replied 
GriflSn. “ I wish Budget were here — she would 
amuse me.” 

“ k. day like this has its uses,” began Giles, in 
his lecturing tone ; “ if the people shut up in this 
room cannot spend one stormy day together with- 
out getting mortally tired of each — 

“ Who^s tired ? ” interrupted Griffin’s growl ; 
“canT I wish for some one else, without being 
tired of you folks ? Eizpah, haven’t you wished 
for anybody this live long day ? ” 

Eizpah and Florence were encircling each other 
with their arms, “ to keep warm,” Florence 
explained, and the yellow head- had nestled itself 


340 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


against Eizpah’s dark shoulder. To Rizpah it was 
like having a sister. 

“Not for any one — this live long day/^ Eizpah 
repeated, “which doesnT prove that I am not 
‘ mortally tired ’ of you, only that I have no one to 
wish for.” 

“ Giles, you have ! appealed Griffin. 

“ Fm such a lonely fellow, that all my world is 
within these four walls,” was the ready answer. 

“There’s some variety about Budget,’^ said Grif- 
fin, in a tone of self-excuse. 

Poor Florence ! Her eyes were becoming misty ; 
and she had tried so hard all day to amuse him ! 
She would ask Mrs. Olmstead, some time, when 
they were alone, how to get “variety.” 

“ In a day like this,” continued the lecturer, 
“ one^s worst as well as one^s best points are 
brought to the surface. What a doleful time Noah 
and his wife, and their three sons and their wives, 
might have had, if they were all disagreeable.” 

“They had the animals to feed,” suggested 
Eizpah. 

“We have had our minds to feed,” he replied, 
thinking what a hard student his old pupil was 
making of herself 

“Oh, 1 havenT been lonely; Pve had a most 


BEFORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED, 34I 


delightful day. I would like a week of days ex- 
actly like it,” she said, in her fresh, young voice. 

“I wouldu’t,^^ moaned Florence, hiding her eyes, 
although the darkness sufficiently shielded them ; 
“if Griffin wants the story of my hard time, he 
may have it to-day.” 

It was one miserable failure, from beginning to 
end ; she had given herself to his comfort, she ha(^ 
played chess with him, read to him, rummaged 
among the rubbish of her writing desk to amuse 
him ; she had told him stories about their times 
abroad, and times at home, she had given herself 
by being herself, and now in the snow and the 
twilight, he was wishing for Budget, because 
she had “variety.” There was nothing more in 
her to give ; she had been serious and gay, 
respectful and saucy, timid and brave; she had 
petted him and quarrelled with him, and after 
it all, he wished for Budget, because she had 
“variety.” 

“ You haven’t looked very doleful,” he remarked 
unfeelingly; rather, it touched one auditor as “un- 
feelingly.” 

“Oh, I have had my happy moments,” she replied 
with a tragic dolefulness that brought a laugh 
from every one of them. 


342 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“ You wish you had Budget yourself/’ protested 
Griffin. 

“ So I do. Every lovely, delightful one of them. 
Bat that isn’t because — I hate — and am not satis- 
fied — with everybody here.^^ 

Griffin spoke with virtuous indignation: “It 
must be a narrow heart, and narrower intellect that 
can satisfy its thin cravings with four people — ” 

“But you said in Colorado you wanted only 
Giles, said the muffied voice on Rizpah’s shoulder. 

“I havn’t self-conceit enough to suppose that 
anybody else would go with me ; when it comes to 
thaiy I’m the humblest dog that crawls,” said Grif- 
fin, in his heat mixing his metaphors. 

Another merry laugh burst out in the snow and 
the twilight. 

“ Miss Rizpah, these children are very amusing,” 
said Giles, looking down at the two girlish faces, 
so near each other. 

The look of care had left Rizpah’s eyes, that 
brooding motherhood, that years of nursing had 
burned into their gray duskiness ; the womanliness 
had lost itself in a certain youthfulness and girlish- 
ness that she had not had five years ago ; it was the 
sweeter for what it had grown out of; no one to- 
night would guess that she was thirty years old; 


BEFORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED. 343 


the mistake would be in bringing her age too near 
a decade younger; her hair was arranged in a 
more girlish fashion, and her style of dress, al- 
though in graver hues, was as pretty and becom- 
ing as Florence’s own; how much these two girls 
were doing for each other ; might he have chosen 
for her, he would have chosen the daily companion- 
ship of one like Florence Chevil. 

The baby face of Blossom was strengthening in- 
to firmer lines; she was becoming something to 
herself and in herself; his mother^s ‘‘boarding- 
school ” hold upon them would not end with these 
days of thinking and studying. This freak of 
staying had been good for her. 

Griffin was in his own school. 

About himself, this meditating observer did not 
reason ; he would have told them that there were 
so many interesting people in his world that he 
had no time to waste upon Giles Olmstead. And 
he would have believed that he was speaking the 
truth 

“Blossom, come here and forgive me,” pleaded 
Griffin. 

“No, I will noir 

“ Which won’t you ?” 

“ Neither.” 


344 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“You know you can^t go to sleep unless we 
make up.” 

“ 1 haven’t anything to make up.” 

“ I have.” 

“ Make it up, then.” 

“ I can't — all alone.” 

“You quarrelled — all alone.” 

The merriment burst forth again, and this time 
brought Griffin’s mother from the seclusion of her 
bedroom. 

“ Mother,” was Griffin’s greeting, as she entered 
refreshed and radiant, “ haven’t you been pro- 
voked with somebody to-day ? ” 

“ Beside you ? ” in somewhat of Griffin’s quick 
way. 

“ Confess now ; I want them to acknowledge 
that I inherited my quarrelsome tendencies by ma- 
ternal transmission.” 

Mrs. Olmstead was standing at a side table, 
lighting the lamp ; the light flashing over her face 
revealed something as refreshing and radiant as 
Mrs. Morehouse’s sleep had brought to her; nothing 
rested her with such a sense of restfulness, as new 
thoughts about life and its Giver. She had been 
writing May thoughts for the girl at home, who 
had written enthusiastically about the help and 


BEFORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED. 345 


inspiration the August thoughts had been to her ; 
the most sacred had become the most secular ; she 
had woven them, or they had woven themselves, 
in among the threads of her thinkings and doings, 
and she begged for something to think about each 
day in May. 

“ Sometimes it fits right in with my Daily 
Food/^ 

Mrs. Olmstead had used her own “Daily Food,” 
for twenty-seven years. 

“ I wish 1 could inherit readiness to acknowl- 
edge my faults from you,” said Grifiin’s mother. 

“ I wish you could,” he answered, with perfect 
seriousness, “ and then you would say to Eizpah 
that you had judged her hastily to-day.” 

“ Hasty judgment is not one of my faults ; I am 
remarkably clear-sighted in judging of motives,” 
she replied, with emphatic and angry emphasis, 
provoked with him for divining her surmise that 
Eizpah was urged by some small jealousy to offer 
her the chair nearest the fire. 

“ I wish somebody would tell the truth when 
they confessed they had not been angry to-day,” 
said GriflSn. “ I know you haven’t, Mrs. Olmstead.” 

“ I have been angry with myself with an anger 
that has not forgiven myself yet,” was the severe 


346 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


reply, as she settled the green shade upon the 
lamp. 

“ Please tell us about what ? coaxed Florence. 

“I am too proud — I wish I had humility 
enough to confess it.” 

“ What a wicked creature you are,” said Mrs. 
Morehouse, as her chair began its rocking, and 
she drew a ball of crimson silk from her pocket 
for a purse for her husband’s sister. Miss More- 
house. 

“ Kizpah, have you been mad ? ” proceeded the 
privileged member of the party. 

“Yes, Pve been mad at you.” 

“ I knew it ; I saw it in your eye.” 

“ Giles, have you been mad? ” 

“ Pve been out of patience with you.'*^ 

“ You are all determined to pick a quarrel with 
me,” he cried, in feigned ill-humor, “ my forbear- 
ance with you all has been touching.” 

“ I wonder what the women of Noah’s family 
did ? ” said Florence, suddenly. 

“ Oh, they had to feed the men,” returned Grif- 
fin. 

“ They had nobody to look forward to when the 
rain was over : 1 wish somebody hadn’t spoken of 
them.” 


BEFORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED, 347 


“ I wish somebody would say something pleas- 
ant about them,” said Rizpah ; they hadn’t one 
little child with them, and all their friends were 
drowned.” 

The bright face of Mrs. Olmstead was turned to 
her : “ '‘And God remembered^' do you want some- 
thing pleasanter than that ? ” 

Chancing to lift her eyes just then, Mrs. More- 
house wondered why the girl’s face should grow 
glad at that. 

“ Once he said about a certain thing: ‘ I will 
go down now and see.’ Does he come down now 
to ‘ see ^ ? Does he care to see ? ” 

“If he may only be glad to see — and not griev- 
ed,” was Rizpah’s unspoken reply. 

Something in the unsympathetic set of Mrs. 
Morehouse^s lips kept her thought back ; the set 
of those lips had kept many thoughts back from 
Griffin^s utterance. 

Her friend Maria never kept a thought, or any- 
thing else back because of her lips, or anything 
about her; it seems unaccountable that a woman 
may live forty years, bury a husband, and be the 
mother of a child, and yet the deepest in her not 
be touched ; is it that the deepest in us cannot be 
touched, excepting by the love of God ? 


348 


RIPAZirS HERITAGE, 


The shining of the lamp broke the spell; Flor- 
ence lifted her head, finding her work at the end 
of Griffin^s sofa, seated herself with her back to him 
and diligently drew the wool in and out of the rug 
she was making for mamma’s room, at home; Eiz- 
pah brought herself back from a happy somewhere 
to a more actual present, and opened her French 
story book; GriflSn looked as amiable as though 
he had never wished for Budget, and seemed 
wholly satisfied with the view of the back of 
the yellow bent head. Giles examined the orna- 
ments about the room with an absent-minded in- 
terest, wondering if Eizpah would think him a 
mean fellow for accepting a thousand dollar 
check from his friend Griffin. “He would throw 
it away on somebody else,” he reasoned. Still 
he hoped Griffin would not speak of it to her. 
His mother put away her writing materials with 
the manner of one who had finished a good day’s 
work. 

The sound and motion of the rocker was becom- 
ing more tolerable to them all; Griffin was in a 
better humor than he had been all day; the 
evening would be something new in the day, and 
to-morrow the sun would shine. 

“ Philip, have you written something for me 


BEFORE THE LAMP WAS LIGHTED. 


349 


to-day ? whispered Eizpah, as they passed down 
to supper together. 

“ Blossom, let^s write poetry to-night,^’ proposed 
GrifSn at the supper table. “You write. ‘Her 
View of Life,^ and I’ll write ‘ His View of Life.^’ 

“ I can rhyme fast enough,'^ consented Florence, 
delightedly, “ but I can^t make sense.’’ 

“ 0 ril supply that,” was the magnanimous reply, 
“ and I have a great many views of life just now ; 
I’m not doing anything else.” 


XXXIII. 


WHAT EIZPAH EE AD. 

After supper, while the “ children ” Were writ- 
ing poetry together on the sofa, Eizpah sat near 
the table where the green-shaded lamp was burn- 
ing, and read the thin sheets Mrs. Olmstead laid 
in her hand; Giles in a far corner had his special 
lamp for evening writing; the two older ladies 
worked and talked. The words Giles was writing 
ran confusedly into his each other; he had taken 
a large cheque from the boy before when he had 
not the excuse of tedious weeks of night and day 
nursing. What had Eizpah to do with it? What 
if she might give it the ugly name of taking 
advantage of the boy’s fondness for him ? She 
had no idea of the value of a thousand dollars ! 

Mrs. Morehouse was planning her English sum- 
mer ; the Swiss winter had not been planned — 
in her planning. 

Eizpah read: 

( 350 ) 


WHAT RIZPAH READ, 


351 


“ May First , — The furnace of affliction is one of 
the places in which God chooses us. Is that one 
of the last places we choose to be in ? We donT 
see ivliy such and such a trial has to be sent to us. 

“ He chooses the weak things — and yet how we 
fight against being weak. 

“ I believe there are some experiences that can- 
not come to us in any other way than through 
physical pain. Until you have a great sorrow, you 
will think physical pain the hardest pain in the 
world to bear. What a great sorrow is, depends as 
much upon ourselves, as upon anything outside of 
us. Your furnace of affliction may not seem heat- 
ed very hot to some one else. God chooses that 
furnace for you, as well as chooses you in that fur- 
nace. 

“ Second . — The Father himself loveth you — why ? 
‘ Because ye have loved me.’ How that reason ap- 
peals to our human natures ; or because it is God’s 
reason, is it to the divine in our human natures ? 
Does God love me as well as I love Jesus? Will 
he not hurt, or grieve, or shock , me (needlessly) 
any sooner than I would hurt Jesuj^, his Son, my 
Saviour. Because we both love Jesus, we love each 
other ; the love to Jesus draws us near together ; 
it is the bond holding us together. The more we 


352 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


love Jesus, the more will His Father love us, ac- 
cording to that saying. I know I love any one 
who loves Giles ; I think it would be impossible for 
me not to be drawn to any one who loves my son. 
Is not that loving us for Jesus’ sake? As we 
would say in human speaking : God loves us more 
and differently, after we love Jesus than he loves 
us before. Do you love Jesus so dearly, that 
you can begin to understand how God loves you ? ” 

After each thought, Rizpah rested her head 
upon her hand, and sat thinking. It was hard to 
keep up the old Chateau d’Oex talks here, 
where Mrs. Morehouse was ; her Philip knew that 
she must have this instead. 

“ Third . — Some of God’s withholdings are for 
our growth, not only that we may labor for them, 
but wait for them, long more appreciatively for 
them, best of all, trust him for them. Any thing 
slow in coming (as we count slowness) brings an- 
othej* blessing with it, beside the thing we sought ; 
God is too rich and wise to give us only the poor 
thing we asked ; He gives it a richer trimming. 
Blessed are they who wait — did you think that 
‘blessed’ meant nothing? You may say : ‘1 am 
only waiting for something I want.’ I am sorry 
for you if you are not waiting for Him to give it 


WHAT RIZFAH READ. 353 - 

to you ; I am sorry for you if you are not asking 
him for it. I am sorry for you if you do not care 
more for him than for it Perhaps he means to 
keep you waiting until you do ; and that is the 
highest ‘blessed’ he gives to waiting man. You 
are blessed while you are waiting ; the blessing 
comes before it, as well as with it, and because of 
it. ‘ The blessing, of the Lord.’ ” 

A long time Kizpah mused over this ; every- 
thing in her life was his blessing ; it seemed to 
her that almost nothing had come as it comes to 
other girls, naturally ; and in that she was the 
more “blessed.” 

^'‘Fourth . — If ‘whatsoever is not of faith is sin,’ 
the faith extends to everything and anything that 
can come under the head of ‘ what-so-ever.’ What 
in your life is sin ? That one thing you haven’t 
faith about. What in your life is faith ? I hope 
there is nothing that is not faith. And then the 
writing became clearer, and he resolved to invest 
the small sum wisely. He that has faith in a little 
thing, will have faith in a greater thing; be care- 
ful to have faith in little things. My pen both- 
ered me one day and I prayed that it might 
write better — do you not think that with that 

same pen, I would pray that I might write the 
23 


354 


RIZPAH^S heritage. 


truths as well as to write in plain penmanship? 
I think some (not to make an example of myself, 
but to point my meaning) have faith to ask that 
they may write the truth, and forget to remember 
that God cares (for our sakes) about the pen we 
write it with. 

“ Fifth . — One of the natural results of being 
mother and daughter, or father and son, is not 
that they understand each other. Said a girl to 
me: ‘I trembled from head to foot before I could 
tell my mother.’ It was not any disobedience she 
had to confess, simply something she knew (by 
instinct perhaps) that her mother would not sym- 
pathize with. My mother was my best friend ; if 
your mother is not, ask God to help you under- 
stand each other. Daughters must grow up 
sometimes before they can understand their 
mothers ; in such a case how much both lose ! 
Kinship of spirit is not a part of the kinship of 
flesh. One may be solitary with a wealth of natural 
kin ; but who is alone that has one that fully un- 
derstands him ? Neither did Christ’s brethren 
believe on him ; John was not his brother accord- 
ing to the flesh, but oh, how near ! The love of 
Jesus is the bond between you and his Father ; 
the same love is the bond between you and some 


WHAT RIZPAH READ. 


355 


earthly dear friend. I pray yon, don’t make the 
closest kinship, without this love to bind you, to 
hold you fast. It will not hold through all things 
without this love to hold it. And just as truly a 
man who is a Christian, and whom you do not 
love, will not hold you fast ; do not marry only for 
that ; there are some Christians very hard to live 
with. 

“ When I was a girl there was a young man 
whom I knew whose scholarly tastes, fine presence 
and strong moral purpose were great attractions 
to me ; had he been a Christian I know I should 
have loved him ; but he did not touch the deepest 
in me. There was another who was a decided 
Christian, but in nothing else equal to the other 
whom I could not love ; either of them would 
have been hard to live with ; neither of them were 
for me. I write this at a venture ; you may not 
need it ; but at your age I would have been glad 
to have had it written to me ; I am writing to 
myself as I was between nineteen and twenty- 
two.” 

“ Am I excluded,” thought Kizpah, ‘‘ because I 
am nearer twenty-six than twenty-two ? But I am 
staying a girl so long ! And I am only just begin- 
ning to be a girl.” 


356 


RIPAZirS HERITAGE. 


‘'‘Sixth — We admire a high spirit — one of the 
sacrifices God accepts is a broken spirit 
“Seventh — Everything is as possible to God to-day 
as it ever was. Your life may be as wonderful in 
its nearness to him, in learning his secrets, in hav- 
ing the rewards of obedience, as any life recorded 
under the inspiration of the Spirit. 

“ Was Ruth’s story wonderful ? Was Deborah^s ? 
Was Hannah’s? Was Priscilla’s? Your life is 
in his hands just the same; your story is in the 
same book of remembrance ; your name is in the 
same Book of Life. 

“ Eighth — Faith makes one so rich — beside be- 
ing rich in faith. ‘I know thy poverty, said 
Christ, ‘(but thou art rich).* Dare not to call 
yourself poor. 

“ Ninth — When God gives you a little, it is be- 
cause a little is better than more ; and, perhaps it 
is that you may make more of it. He gives us a 
great deal to do for ourselves. 

“ Tenth — Often when I hold something in my 
hand that I have no use for, I think: ‘There’s some- 
body in this world longing for just this thing — and 
the reverse is equally true; some one is holding in 
his hand, uncertain what to do with, or careless 
what to do with, the thing I am longing for — pray- 


WHAT RIZPAH READ. 


357 


ing for. A change of hands ! That is going on 
all the time. 

“Wrote an invalid girl to me (poor little thing, 
twenty-three years old, in bed twelve years, ‘ I do 
so long to do something for Jesus : Oh, I love him 
so ; if I had some picture cards I could paste them in 
books for some children in a hospital.^ About a 
month later came another letter: ‘I have piles 
and piles of picture cards that I don’t know what 
to do with ; can you enlighten me ?’ 

“ That change of hands was quickly made, you 
may be sure. The thought was in my mind all 
ready for the illustration. God said to Moses: 
‘ What is that in thine hand ? ’ Moses answered, 
‘ a rod.’ What do you say ? 

Eleventh . — ‘As many as ye shall find, bid — 
Do we know how many to bid ? Do you know when 
you have done all you were sent to do? When 
you cannot ‘find^ another one. 

Does the ‘many^ depend at all upon ourselves? 

“ Twelfth. — My Bible is my very precious friend; 
we have gone through a great deal together. And 
yet, it is nothing save ink and paper and words — 
without Him who is Life and Light. Once when I 
was ill and left alone in the dark, I drew my Bible 
nearer and laid my hand upon it — then I pushed it 


358 


RIZPAH^S heritage: 


away, for I was touching it instead of holding 
God’s hand ; at that moment it was my idol. Once 
the elders of Israel said (when smitten before the 
Philistines) ‘ Let ns fetch the ark of the covenant of 
the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh 
among us, it may save us out of the hand of our 
enemies.’ 

“ And when it was brought Israel shouted with 
a great shout, so that the earth rang again. 

“Bead the story on: ‘And the ark of God was 
taken.’ 

“ Thirteenth — Do I pray about everything on 
Sunday ? Must we not keep the Sabbath in our 
prayers ?” Must we not keep every one of the com- 
mandments in our prayers ? ‘ If I regard iniquity 

in my heart the Lord will not hear me.'^ ‘Take no 
thought for your life;’ no harassing thought, no 
faithless thought, no hindering thought, no selfish 
thought. Is not that command of the Lord as 
binding as any in the Decalogue ? You who 
would not dare to steal, or covet, or kill, how do 
you dare to break this commandment? In your 
thoughts, your prayers, your plans ! What kind 
of ‘ thought ’ may you take for your life ? The 
kind of thought Christ took for his human life. 
Do you suppose he forgot his mother all those 


WHAT RIZPAH READ. 


359 


years only to remember her that last moment on 
the cross ? ‘ Take no thought ’ does not mean : 

‘ Make no effort.’ The Lord did not by miracle 
put a piece of silver in Peter’s hand to pay his tax 
bill ; he bid him go and catch a fish. He did not 
say : ‘ Take no thought about this tax ; ’ he said, 
‘ Go to work and get it.’ Go in faith, resting on 
my Avord, not in taking anxious thought. When 
you are in doubt about one of his commands 
study up some illustrations of it. About some of 
his sayings the disciples inquired of him when 
they were in the house; so can we. We need 
never go away with: ‘This is a hard saying,’ 
if Ave care to knoAv his meaning. Only the false 
disciples did that. About praying for everything 
on Sunday — if you feel in the very presence of 
Christ and look up into his face, I am sure you will 
not ask for anything that will grieve him. 

^'‘Fourteenth,— '‘KH qy all these things do the Gen- 
tiles seek.’ Was the Son commanding the seeking 
of the Gentiles ? ‘ Your Father knoweth that ye 

have need of all these things.’ 

-'‘^Fifteenth , — Does not God care for what we 
want ? Is it only for what we need ? And for 
Avhat he thinks we need ? Not for what we think 
Ave need ? I would like to answer your questions 


360 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


by illustrations from his own sure Word. When 
he took bis people into the land of promise, what 
did he give them ? ‘ A land wherein thou shalt eat 

bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any- 
thing in it' Goodly houses, gold and silver, were 
among the good things in the good land. Did he 
care for what they Avanted ? Did they need all 
these things ? Could they not have been comfort- 
able without them ? He was willing for them not 
only to ‘ eat ’ but to ‘ be full ; ’ and to eat not only 
for nourishment but for their satisfaction. John the 
Baptist, dwelling in that same land, fed on locusts 
and wild honey and was arrayed in camels-hair, 
with a leathern girdle about his loins; they might 
have lived like that, had God chosen it for them. 
Could they think of anything else they wanted? 
Solomon asked wisdom ; the Lord gave him gold^ 
also. 

“ Sixteenth . — Does God permit us to be deceived? 
In the old days, when a dreamer of dreams gave a 
sign or a wonder, sometimes it came to pass ; he 
must be true, or the sign vrould not come to pass. 
Must he therefore be sent from God to teach them? 
It would depend altogether upon what he taught 
them ; suppose he said : ‘Let us go after other 
gods.’ He gives his reason for bringing to pass 


WHAT RIZPAH READ. 


361 


the dream or sign of the false dreamer. ‘ For the 
Lord your God provttli you., to know whether ye 
love the Lord your God with all your heart and all 
your soul.’ Not to prove whether you love him a 
little, put with ‘ all your heart.’ No matter what 
sign come to pass — obey God. No matter how 
plausible the teaching — believe God. He cannot 
contradict himself by any one whom he has sent. 
Do you remember the story of the man of God 
who would not go home with the King, because 
the Lord had charged him not to eat bread, or 
drink water in that place ? He refused the king, 
and then was beguiled by an old prophet, who said 
to him that an angel had spoken unto him, and 
bidden him find him, and bring him back to his 
house to eat and drink. ‘ But he lied unto him.’ 
The man of God was permitted to believe the lie, 
and was punished by a lion meeting him and slay- 
ing him. Was not his punishment just? Did he 
not believe the man who lied rather than God who 
had spoken unto him ? He knew God had spoken 
unto him; he might have been sure that God had not 
contradicted his command through this old proph- 
et of Bethel. God proved him, and he chose to be- 
lieve the lie. If he had cried out : ‘ 0 Lord, I am 
perplexed ; show me thy word^^ do you believe he 


362 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


would have gone with the man who lied unto him ? 
It would have been as impossible as for those disci- 
ples to go away from the Lord, and walk no more 
with him. And yet does not God speak his will 
to us through human lips ? Do you remember that 
J osiah (who did that which was right in the sight 
of the Lord) hearkened not unto the words of 
Necho,/rom the mouth of God^ and because of not 
hearkening was shot by the archers and died? 
Necho was the king of Egypt ; not a prophet, and 
how could Josiah know that he was speaking from 
God ? To fight against him was not forbidden in 
the law. But might he not have known whether 
God were speaking through his lips ? Might he 
not have inquired of the Lord, as David did ? 
David had the priest and the ephod, and God an- 
swered him. He said : ‘ I beseech thee tell thy ser- 
vant.’ And the Lord told him. It is always safe 
to ask God. Do not read books about which you 
are in doubt, do not listen to teaching about 
which you are in doubt; ask God, and then you 
will not be in doubt. He will always ‘ tell ’ his 
servant. 

“ Seventeenth . — Work to do and a place to do it 
in, gives me all the satisfaction I ask in this state 
of existence; all the other things are thrown in. 


WHAT RIZPAH READ, 


363 


and my life is overflowing with the joy of the 
other things. 

^'‘Eighteenth . — About seeking opportunities! Op- 
portunities are always coming unsought ; without 
conscious seeking. Says some one: I wish you 
would write to me : Another : Come and make me 
a visit. Still another : have you something for me 
to read ? Again : I want to talk that over with 
you. And : I have a friend I want you to know. 
Be faithful in all these little things. And there’s 
always some one to pray for.” 

Eizpah leaned her head back against her chair, 
holding the sheets in her hand; her life appeared 
empty and aimless; in her efibrts at self-culture, 
how much she was forgetting I If she might only 
be giving herself at the same time ; opportunities 
did not come to her. 

“ Mrs. Olmstead, you know so many people,” 
she said, at last. 

“ I do know many people ; at home on the farm, 
after I was married, I determined to know every- 
body who would care to know me ; I knew I could 
do some little thing for each one, if only to lend a 
good book ; I had been teaching, and as far as I 
could, I kept up with my old girls ; three times 1 
have been to the far west to attend a christening. 


364 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


and, after Giles and I were left alone, I might 
have spent a part of every summer with my old 
married pupils; I went back to my teaching, after 
seven years of life on the farm ; Giles worked away 
on it, to get it clear. His father lived but five 
years after we were married ; he and Giles and I 
had five happy years together. I have had time to 
know people; that time for you is just beginning.’* 

“ I think I desire to know them, that I may get, 
not give, as you do.” 

‘‘ One must get, to give.” 

“ Maria,” in petulant discontent, “ you have such 
queer ideas ; you are not like people in the world 
at all ; you are like somebody in a memoir.” 

“ How did they get into memoirs ? 

“ By dying, I suppose.” 

“By living first, probably.” 

“ I think you are too good.” 

“Not too good to be put in a memoir,” with a 
laugh. 

“I don’t like memoirs.” 

“ Then you don’t like me — that is a considerate 
way of putting it.” 

“ I don’t like some things about you.” 

“ What ? ’* inquired Mrs. Olmstead, dimpling 
like a girl. 


WHAT RIZPAH READ, 


3G5 


“Your — sanctity, — if that is the name of it; it 
isn't natural.” 

“No; sanctity is not natural.” 

“ You are not like other people, I know; I nev- 
er saw any one like you.” 

“ I know people who do the same work for the 
same ends.” 

“ I don’t.” 

“ It is possible that I have seen one or two peo- 
ple that have not the pleasure of knowing you.” 

“It makes you disagreeable; you didn’t use to 
be so disagreeable.’^ 

“ I am sorry for that.” 

“You don’t read novels any more, you don’t 
talk about dress— only enough to get yours made ; 
you never will go to the theatre with me, you 
will not make friends with some people I want you 
to know — and you talk! You talk about serious 
matters as if that is all life were for ! You don’t 
write me such things any more, and I am glad ; I 
used to skip.” 

The dimples had disappeared. She regarded her 
friend for a moment with grave earnestness ’; every 
year they were growing apart; how could it be 
otherwise ? Each was growing in her own chosen 
direction. 


366 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


“ It can’t be helped, I suppose,” cried the petu- 
lant voice, “You will not change.” 

“ Not to turn back; it’s a pity for your sake, but 
I suspect I am growing more so.” 

“ That’s what I said; I’m glad you see it; I shall 
go back to England and be so different. — Mr. 
Morehouse is willing for me to have all the society 
I want.” 

“ I have all I want,” replied Mrs. Olmstead, con- 
tentedly. 

“ Just now ? Oh, of course.” 

“ Any time.” * ^ 

“ But it isn’t gay.” 

“ Is it Faber who said his heart was always gay ? ” 
asked Giles from his corner, coming to his mother’s 
rescue. 

“ And for such a reason,” answered his mother. 

Eizpah remembered the reason; they had read it 
together yesterday. “Because thou always hast 
Thy way.” 

“ What was the reason? ” asked Mrs. Morehouse, 
indifferently, for the sake of saying something. 

“ One of the things you ‘skip,^” was her friend’s 
light reply. 

“ I suppose I’ve skipped a great deal in my life 
time.” 


WHAT RIZPAH READ, 


367 


There was a great deal in Mrs. Morehouse ; Riz- 
pah was wondering what was the good it did to 
any one beside herself ; some few small troublesome 
traits, some few wrong ideas concerning the re- 
sponsibilities of life, seemed to spoil the good that 
was in her ; she never helped without hindering, 
not that one thing, perhaps, but something else ; 
the little things about her made the great differ- 
ence ; her fund of common sense was drawn upon 
only in emergencies ; Mrs. Olmstead believed that 
she was as silly and as wise as any one she ever 
knew. Conversation with her was wearing. With 
a sense of refreshment to come, Eizpah took up 
the sheets of thin paper again. General conversa- 
tion was tiring to Mrs. Morehouse; she enjoyed a 
dialogue in which herself was chief speaker; in a 
bickering, half-playful tone, she carried the conver- 
sation on; Giles lost himself in his book again, 
wondering at his mother’s patience. The frown on 
GrifiEin’s face grew blacker and blacker ; without in 
the least intending it, Mrs. Olmstead’s repartee was 
showing his mother in her worst light; she would 
not be silent; she had a grievance, and she was 
determined to speak it. Maria’s refusal to spend 
the summer with her, was such a relief, that she 
was ashamed to think of it; but if Maria were 


368 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


SO changed as to be no longer agreeable to her, 
was it her fault that she did not enjoy her society ? 
She was sorry for Maria. 

With his usual straightforwardness, Griffin had 
told his mother that Kizpah had refused him ; he 
said it very easily; he knew Eizpah would rise in 
his mother’s regard because of it. 

“ That friendless girl ! To refuse you 1 And 
when you were strong.” 

“ It wouldn’t be such a marvel now, would it ?” 
hiding the swift, sharp pain under his light tone. 
“ But with the Chevils for her friends, she is every- 
thing but friendless, to say nothing of old Giles 
and his mother.^’ 

“What did she do it for? Was she afraid of 
me?” 

“ She isffit afraid of anything.” 

“ What did you do it for, then ?^’ 

“ Boys have dreams ; she was one of mine,” he 
answered, curtly. 

“ Is Blossom one of them ? ” 

“No ; she is a most bewitching reality.^’ 

This conversation tobk place at Chateau d ’Oex ; 
ever since, Mrs. Morehouse had made much of the 
girl she could not understand ; she would have 
been glad to take her to England, and make her 


WHAT RIZPAH READ. 


369 


useful. Eizpah was interested in her two little 
Indians. Eizpah picked up the sheets to read : 

Nineteenth . — We are all apt to think that the 
way we have learned is the only way, and to ques- 
tion any experience that we are not familiar with. 
‘ When I became a Christian,’ said one, ‘ I was 
under conviction of sin for six weeks.’ ‘ I did not 
think of myself or my sins at all,’ said another, 
‘ my only thought, was the exceeding loveliness of 
Christ.’ In teaching one seeking God, one would 
ask : Do you feel yourself to be a sinner? The 
other would ask : What think ye of Christ ? The 
way we have learned, may be the only way God 
meant to teach us ; but oh, how many ways he 
has I If we can, let us use for some one the way 
he taught us, that is the way we know best. Let 
not any one thing he does for us, be for our sakes 
alone ; every truth he teaches you, is for some one 
beside you. When you write a letter for Jesus’ 
sake, he the letter yourself, be a living epistle ; 
what a powerful letter that will be. (I am taking 
this to myself to-day.) 

^'‘Twentieth . — You are afraid that if God give you 
that thing you are asking of him you will have 
nothing to have faith about ! Poor thing, if that 

one thing is all your life consists in ! I had that 
24 


370 


RIZFAWS HERITAGE. 


fear once about something; he has given it to me, 
and I have plenty of things to have faith about 
and pray about yet. Something new for myself 
or some one else is always coming up. 

Twenty-first — We are miserable with the very 
nature that we are happy with; the very same 
sets of nerves ; not to be miserable in some circum- 
stances would prove that we had nothing to be 
happy with in other circumstances, that is, 
according to nature; according to grace is another 
thing : Paul and Silas were happier in prison than 
some people ever will be out of prison — with their 
backs bleeding with stripes and their feet in the 
stocks. Your happiness depends upon you more 
than upon anything about you; and you will be a 
long time learning it ; I was. It sounds like an old 
woman all through with the world to say it 
doesn’t matter much what God gives or what he 
withholds, if he only give you himself; but I do 
say it, and may you not have to live as long as I 
did before finding it joyfully true. 

^^Twenty-second , — ‘ But I must be prepared^^ said 
one excitedly, too nervous to go to sleep. Of 
course you must. The Lord can prepare you as 
^easily when you are asleep as when you are awake. 

Twenty-third . — Said some one to me, ‘I believe 


WHAT RIZPAH READ. 


371 


that if I were assured that I must be lost, never 
enter the presence of Christ and never work for 
him in his upper kingdom, that I should spend my 
life as I do now : (with the assurance of being 
saved:) in teaching his word and his will to 
sinners.’ 

^'‘Twenty-fourth — You cannot ‘cast your care’ 
unless you have care to cast. ‘ I don’t care,’ never 
cast a care upon God. He has put his work in our 
hand ; let us put the cares of our life into his hand. 
We can do nothing with our cares, and we can do 
something with his work. We must live on earth 
with our heart in heaven: God is in heaven with 
his heart upon earth. 

Tiventyffth . — ^You do not have to be satisfied 
with one day’s work — it may take seven times 
seven days to bring the result one is working for : 
the greatest prayer is patience, says some old 
heathen. It is through patience we have hope, 
says one who was not an old heathen. 

Twenty -sixth . — Your heart is always unveiled 
in God^s sight; through your own thoughts and 
actions it is unveiled in your own sight. 

“ Twenty-seventh . — You may do God’s work and 
yet not do it for him. 

“ Twenty-eighth . — To teach, your knowledge must 


372 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


be available; use all you know as quickly as you 
can. 

^'‘Twenty-ninth , — What is an unbearable trouble ? 
something that God cannot bear for you ? Judas 
had an unbearable trouble after he betrayed inno- 
cent blood, and he knew it. Peter did not have an 
unbearable trouble after he denied Christ. Peter 
wept bitterly; Judas killed himself. 

'■'‘Thirtieth , — When you cry out because of your 
trials, you are like Peter, looking down at the 
water instead of looking up at the Lord. He is as 
near you as he was to Peter. 

^'‘Thirty -first , — Let him that is older be as the 
younger. You are the eldest of five. Are you 
willing to take the position of the younger ? To 
be advised, controlled, — meddled with, even, — to do 
the work of the younger, to run on the errands of 
the household, to be helped last to the good things, 
to wait upon the others, and to wait and let them 
go ahead, in the household, in the church, in the 
work of the kingdom. This is the place the 
Master assigns you and me; the place of the 
younger, and the position of him that serves.” 


XXXI \^. 


GEIEFIN’s CALE]S^DAR. 

Tee sheets were kept together by a crimson silk 
thread. As Eizpah laid them on the table a 
thought came to her: “ Would you mind letting me 
help ? May I make a cover of rough paper and 
paint in gold upon it : May Thoughts ? ” 

“ That will be pretty ; thank you. And then I 
shall have written a book.” 

“ Some time — when I need it very ranch, will you 
write one just for me — Philip ? You know Philip 
was sent to the eunuch to ask him ‘ understandest 
thou what thou readest ? ^ And he said he had no 
man to ^uide him. You are my Philip.” 

-aiadV” 

Standing at Mrs. Olmstead’s side with her hand 
resting upon her shoulder, Eizpah’s lips parted 
eagerly, then closed again ; the thought had come 
within the last half hour; was it only a passing 
impulse, should she wait until morning before 

she spoke ? 

( 373 ) 


374 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


At that instant Mrs. Morehouse, sitting opposite, 
raised' her eyes; the girl’s attitude and expression 
moved her as she had never moved her before. 

‘‘ You look as though you had something to 
say,” she said, curiously. 

“ I have. I do not know that I dare.” 

“ To whom 

“ To you ! ” 

“ You look like a prophetess; what have I done 
now ? ” 

“ It is something I wish you to do.” 

The heads bent over the book on the sofa were 
lifted. Florence’s eyes were dilated with surprise. 
Griffin knew something serious was coming; with 
some curiosity Giles left his book and came to 
stand near the fire. Mrs. 01m stead looked up 
into Kizpah’s face. 

‘‘ You said Miss Morehouse was an invalid ? ” 

“ She is — with chronic rheumatism.” 

“ And those little girls who have no mother 
and father have no one but you ? ” 

“ And I don’t understand children — girls, least 
of all,” in her lightest tone. 

“ Mrs. Morehouse, will you take me to England 
with you and let me be nurse and governess and 
sister and mother to them ? I was desolate once. 


GRIFFIN^ S CALENDAR, 


375 


and somebody cared for me — that way. I do not 
know how very well, but I can learn easily, and I 
want to do it more than anything. My heart has 
been aching to find somebody that needed me — 
like that.” 

‘‘ Eizpah, you are crazy,” cried Griffin, jumping 
to his feet and pushing the large volume to the 
floor, “ mother shall do no such thing.” 

“ Indeed 1 will,” exclaimed his mother. “ Eizpah, 
I thank you with all my heart. I will pay you 
well.” 

“ I couldn’t take money,” said Eizpah, in a low, 
quick voice. 

You impulsive thing ! ” said Griffin, angrily. 

Mrs. Olmstead took Eizpah’s nervous fingers 
into her warm clasp ; the girl’s impulses were the 
outgrowth of strong principle; she was satisfied 
to let her have her will. 

‘‘ Mother, have you nothing to say ? ” Giles ap- 
pealed. 

Evidently he had nothing to say. 

“ Eizpah knows best,” was the quiet reply. 

‘‘ Thank you,” said Eizpah, controlling her voice 
with some effort. “ I think I understand all 
about them. Matilda is nine and Erma is seven ; 
they can read, and that is all they can do; 


376 


RIPAZH^S HERITAGE. 


Matilda is a siknt child and Erma is bright and 
talkative ; they are both old-fashioned little things, 
with more of their ayah’s influence about them 
than any other. They came to England little 
heathens, I do not know how much they have been 
taught since.” 

“ Their Aunt Matilda has been able to do 
nothing for them, and their English nurse was 
afraid of them, and let them have their own way; 
you will have your hands full; you may better 
take a salary, you will want some pay.” 

“ I have heard of work where wages are sure,” 
said Eizpah. “ I wish to have it distinctly under- 
stood that I am not working for money, and also, 
that the children belong to me. You understand 
what I mean — I must teach them what I have 
been taught.^^ 

“ Oh, dear me ! Teach them anything,” was the 
laughing reply, “ no one will interfere with you. 
I will assure Mr. Morehouse that you are intellect- 
ually and spiritually capable of having the care of 
them for ten years, at least ; you will be let alone, 
never fear. It will be a great care off of his mind, 
poor man ; in his last letter he urged me to come 
home, and see about getting a nurse or governess, 
for the last one had left in a huff. Matilda is too 


GRIFFIN^ S CALENDAR. 


377 


ill to be troubled, and he was in a great strait, and 
had had to brush their hair and button their shoes 
himself, for the maids resented their way of speak- 
ing to them. Their English is frightful ; I never 
let visitors see them.” 

“ Kizpah, do you see how crazy you are ? ” said 
Griffin. 

“No.” 

Florence laughed. “We have all heard her say 
‘ no ’ before.” 

Giles went back to his lamp and his book ; Grif- 
fin avoided a glance toward him. 

“ Dear brave, old fellow, this is one too many 
for you,” he thought. “ What has got into “^he 
girl ? ” 

In her pretty, coaxing way, Florence put her 
arms about Eizpah’s shoulders, and laid her cheek 
against hers : “ Kizpah, you are giving up every- 
thing ! 

“ You forget what I am taking.” 

“Two naughty little girls, who will be the 
plague of your life.”. 

“Kizpah will have a beautiful home, Florence; 
she will have kind friends ; I do not see that she 
is giving up anything,” said Mrs. Morehouse, in a 
constrained voice. 


378 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“She is giving up us^ 

“But you all have each other.” 

“ Mamma will not be pleased, I know, and Pater 
will be angry ; Bee will say it is a splendid thing 
to do.” 

“ What will Mr. Snowdon say ? ” asked Griffin. 

“I do not know that he has a right to say 
anything ; I know what Aunt Eizpah would 
say.” 

“ Are you doing this to please that old woman ? ” 
Griffin demanded. 

“ No.” 

“ Then I would like to know what vou are doing: 
it for 

“Griffin! You are speaking of your mother’s 
house 1” remonstrated his mother. “ Eizpah, I 
wish we might start immediately I ” 

“The sooner the better,” growled Griffin. “I 
wish you would go to-night, and have it over with. 
Eizpah is not considering her friends, in the least; 
it is a shameless and ungrateful desertion of us.’’ 

“I do not know that you need a nurse or a gov- 
erness,” said his mother, provokingly. 

“ Eizpah, you cannot go and leave mef persuad- 
ed Florence; “mamma left me in your care; you 
must see me safe with her.” 


GRIFFIN'S CALENDAR, 


379 


‘‘ This has been a day,” declared Griffin. “ I’ll 
write it in black in my calendar.”- 

How would Giles write it in his ? 

Was he still true to his chosen motto: “JcaTi 
waiV^ 

How would Rizpah write it in hers ? 

“ I am so glad — I am so glad, I have found some- 
thing to cZo,’^ were the last words Giles heard her 
speak that night. 

Griffin, in his bedroom, talked himself hoarse. 

“ This is another memorial to that old woman’s 
memory, I suppose; it is clear, sheer, downright 
infatuation; Td write to Snowdon if it would do 
any good ! If those heathen things once get a 
hold upon her, that is the end of Aer, as far as we 
are concerned ! She doesn’t care a jot for you or 
for mother or for anybody else ; I don’t see what 
her heart is made of; and to think it had to come 
through my mother! I wish for your sake she 
had never seen my mother or me I I wish she had 
stayed away from the Chevils I I wish she were 
still buried in Aunt Eizpah^s old house 1 Then 
you might have had some hope. I do not believe 
she is like other girls. She hasnT the heart of a 
worn an. 

“ Whose heart is doing this ? ” asked Giles. 


380 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ Some old grandmother’s ! There is no ghi 
about it. Why can^t she be a girl while she is a 
girl, and take a girPs chances ? She doesnT know 
what she’s doing! Giles, why don’t you speak, 
man ? ” 

“ I have nothing to say.” 

“ Have you changed your mind about her ? ” 

“ I shall never change my mind about her.” 

Then why in — love’s name don’t you speak ? ” 

“ I promised her I would never ask the question 
again.” 

“I’ll ask it for you.” 

Giles gave him a look. 

“ Do you expect to let her go without a word ?” 

“ I most certainly do.” 

“ Then you are a fool, and you don’t deserve her.” 

“ I can wait,” said Giles. 

Griffin’s angry emphasis reached Eizpah 
through the slender partition that divided her 
room from his ; she smiled, and said to Florence: 
“ The boy must have his tempest.” 

“ But you are so provokingly cool.” 

That night Eizpah wrote a note to him and laid 
it in his hand as they met at the breakfast table. 

“At Chateau d’Oex I told you something that 
was not wholly true ; when I said it, I believed 


GRIFFIN^ S CALENDAF, 


381 


it ; I thought I cared for him as women do care. 
Now I know that I do not ; I tried to care, and T 
worked mjself up into believing it : it was because 
he was a part of my past. I lived in the past ; I 
did not know I had a future. My dear old friend 
has not become less to me, but I have become 
more to myself. I do not live in him, I live now 
in myself ; I have an individuality. His mother 
has taught me that my individual life has its own 
responsibility. No other man will ever hold his 
place in my esteem ; he is one of the workers 
whom I honor. But I cannot love him — something 
comes between. I am not like other girls in these 
things. Perhaps I was born different. Perhaps I 
do not know what other girls are like ; I know so 
few. What I have chosen will make me happier 
than anything ; do not think of me as a martyr. 
If I were a poor girl, you would be glad that I 
might have such a home and such an opportunity. 
Mr. Snowdon has already leased Aunt Kizpah’s 
farm for five years. My little girls and I may 
visit it some day. If I cannot be any happiness to 
your friend, it is better that we should not be so 
much together. Ilis mother suspects and under- 
stands. But I was so selfish that I thought only 
of myself when I made my decision to-night. I 


382 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


trust your judgment in the use you make of this 
confession. If it will make him more sure of some- 
thing he wishes to know, you may show it to him. 
I do not wish I were different. I cannot imagine 
myself like Florence. 

“ In a snow storm on Lake Geneva. 

April 1, 18 — ” “ Eizpah Chevil.’^ 

GrifiBn slipped it into his vest pocket, and read 
it the first moment that he found himself alone. 

“ She^s plucky ! ’’ he exclaimed, aloud. 

Then he refolded it and laid it away in a large 
pocket book ; the time would come when his 
“ friend must see it. 

“Poor fellow,” he half sighed, “but iPs better to 
lose a good woman, than love one not good 
enough for you.” 

Before night, he said to Giles: “If a girl can 
give up ease, and what she likes, and work hard, 
and be found fault with, as she will be, and only 
half loved by those ungrateful little wretches, 
what ought a man to make of himself! Spine or 
no spine, lungs or no lungs, Pll do something, or 
die in the attempt.” 


XXXV. 


IN A FLUTTEE. 

Before three days Florence was up on the moun- 
tains, gathering flowers, and Mrs. Olmstead was 
writing at a small table outside the door. Mrs. 
Morehouse reiterated that her fits of homesickness 
were becoming intolerable, and arose one morning 
with the news in her face before she could utter 
it, that she should pack up that day for England. 

“ I cannot wait for Mr. Morehouse to come for 
me ; Pll go and surprise him. And Eizpah must 
come as soon as she places Florence in her 
mother’s arms.” 

“She would go before if she could,” pouted 
Florence. 

Letters from America that day set everybody in 
a flutter ; Florence was bidden to meet her eager 
family, the first day of May, at the old apartments 
in the Lung’ Arno. 

“ Another May in Florence ! Hurrah ! ” shouted 
Griffin. 


( 383 ) 


384 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


‘‘ And then ? said Giles. 

“ Let the then take care of itself/^ was the reply, 
with his good-humored laugh. ‘‘May is all I 
want to think of.” 

“ Then I will go to my little girls, Mrs. More- 
house,” said Kizpah joyfully. 

“ I suppose somebody must escort you,” said 
GrifiSn. 

“Not necessarily ; your mother expects to travel 
alone. We are Yankee wbmen.” 

“ ni see about that ; Giles and I may be think- 
ing of a Liverpool steamer about then.^^ 

“And what shall you think about, Mrs. 01m- 
stead ? questioned Florence. 

“ My school. My boarding-school here seems to 
be breaking up.” 

“ It’s a general breaking up,” said GriflSn. “ I 
needed some force to start me off. By nature I 
love Lotus eating, and the consequent laziness; 
but by grace, I shall take my life in my hand — 

“ DonT,” pleaded Florence, with a happy laugh, 
“ take it in both hands. 

“ ril take some one else^s life in the other hand,” 
he said, comically. “ Three cheers for old Flor- 
ence ! ” 

“ Something occurs to me ! ” cried Florence; “ it’s 


IN A FLUTTER. 


385 


the brightest thought I ever had ! Why must we 
wait until the first of May to go ? Why not be 
there a week or two in advance ? ” 

“Three cheers for young Florence ! cried Grif- 
fin, hilariously. 

“ Mother, confess you are longing for the world 
again,” said Giles. 

“I am; I am satisfied with our seclusion; it has 
been good for us, and Florence will be all the bet- 
ter for it. Rizpah must have a little more vaca- 
tion before her school commences.” 

“Rizpah, must you?’' asked Florence. 

“ My year has been all vacation.” 

“ And her work will be all vacation, too,” added 
GriflSn, discontentedly. 

What a year it had been ! What a year to her ! 
Each day was an event by itself ; it did not matter 
whether anything happened or not, it seemed to 
her that something was happening; there was life 
in the very atmosphere ; her own mental and spir- 
itual growth had been most vigorous, the face re- 
flected in the mirror struck her differently, from the 
face she had looked at so many years in the glass 
in Aunt Rizpah’s room; this face was so alive, and' 
the cheeks were so round; she was so much in her- 
self, and to herself; the name Rizpah Chevil did not 
25 


386 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


signify simply the young strength from which that 
famishing life had drawn its nourishment; it was 
some one young with thoughts of her own, a pur- 
pose of her own, a will of her own, a future of her 
own ; she belonged as surely as ever to God and 
Aunt Rizpah, and she belonged more surely than 
ever, to the somebody that she ha^ learned was her- 
self; self-repression had not been self-annihilation. 

The “ hush was lifted from her life ; sometime 
she believed she would speak loud, and laugh and 
sing like other girls. Her little girls (how fondly 
and proudly she thought it) should be as joyous 
and free as the Chevils; and to make them so she 
must become so first herself. 

“I must have teachers myself,’^ she said that 
day to Mrs. Morehouse ; “ I intend to study music 
and many other things, I must keep growing ahead 
of my little girls.” 

“You shall have everything you desire,’^ was 
the smiling rejoinder. “ Mr. Morehouse will do 
everything in the world for you if you will take the 
responsibility of those children. He will be happy 
to have me relieved ; what time could I have for 
society or for him if I gave myself to them as you 
intend to do ? Miss Morehouse will be endlessly 
grateful; she dotes on the poor little things.” 


IN A FLUTTER. 


387 


“Does she live with you ?” 

No ! I had to draw the line on my husband’s 
relations, and I drew it on her; she lives alone in 
a cottage out of town, with her cow, her cat, and 
her maid.^’ 

“ What is she like?” asked Rizpah, picturing to 
herself a tall lady with a decided, grim face. 

“ Like herself. Don’t you know how cross rheu- 
matism makes people ? 

The next morning Mrs. Morehouse started for 
England. GriflSn wrote her a letter within twenty- 
four hours of her departure. In reply came four 
sheets filled with the incidents of her journey, the 
joy and surprise of Mr. Morehouse when she 
opened the street door to him in the afternoon on 
his return from business, a pitiful story of the 
plight the children were in, and how Matilda had 
kept her up a good part of the night with her sore 
throat, and what should she do if it should turn 
out to be scarlet fever ? Would Rizpah come ? 

The children were more lawless than ever ; 
Erma would sleep nowhere but cuddled down 
beside her sister, and had eaten nothing since 
Matilda refused to eat ; she had told her that she 
had told a lie because she had deceived her a little 
to force her to eat ; and was altogether the most 


388 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


ungovernable bit of human flesh she had ever had 
to deal with ; her poor uncle was ready to repent 
of his bargain, and Miss Morehouse could only 
weep over her ; she would be ready to fly if it 
were not for the hope of Rizpah. 

And the child had such sweet ways and such a 
sweet face ; her uncle said it was the only vent 
her love for her sister had ; but for her part she 
wished she hadn’t so much love, or so much vent. 

The child is too much for herself, that’s all,” 
said Griffin. “Eizpah will get a tight grip on 
her.’’ 


XXXVI. 


FOEEBODTOGS. 

Would she go if the children were ill ? Might 
she go, was the question, rather, after she had 
promised to see Florence safe in the Lung’ Arno?^ 

Debating the question, she stood at the window, 
looking down upon the gravelled walk that ran 
round the house. In the centre of the green lawn a 
tiny fountain was throwing up its spray, the 
mountains were still sprinkled with snow ; in the 
distance men an d^ women were bending over, busy 
with their spring sowing and planting ; the 
women made a picture in their short, bright skirts 
and broad straw hats. 

It was time for plowing and planting at home ; 
boys and girls were dropping potatoes, and soon 
it would be time to be dropping corn ; it was 
hardly blossom time ; it might be that the spring 
was late and that the waysides were not yet 

green. It would be years before she would paint 

( 389 ) 


390 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


again the blossoms of the sour hai'vest apple tree, 
that stood in a corner of the yard, near Aunt Eiz- 
pah^s sitting-room window. Perhaps Erma would 
paint them for her. Some day she would walk 
through the woods with her little girls, but she 
would never tell them her own sorrowful story ; 
she would tell them instead all the happy things 
about herself, and how many there were to be 
told ! And so many more were coming. 

Since the evening of the snow storm she had 
been too excited to read, study or work ; she did 
not stay in-doors when she might be out, walking, 
driving, or climbing. 

Her decision had wrought a change in the man- 
ner of Giles towards her ; the freedom of the Mon- 
treux days had given place to the restraint of the 
first days in Florence ; she was pained, and then 
she was glad ; if he understood, it would be easier 
for them both ; the time might come when 
cordial, unrestrained friendship would be possible. 
How could she ever teach her girls to behave — 
not like herself, but girlishly and gracefully, like 
the Chevils ? 

A step at her side roused her ; how far away 
she was from the gravelled walk and the fountain. 

“ Miss Rizpah.” 


FOREBODINGS. 


391 


It was Giles, erect and self-possessed, with the 
slightest hesitation in his tone. 

“ Griffin showed me yonr note and told me what 
yon said that day at Chateau d’Oex. It is well I 
did not know it then, for life might have been a 
mistake to us both. I do not understand you at 
all. I used to think I did.” 

“ I do not understand myself,” Eizpah burst out, 
feeling miserable enough. 

‘‘ I thought you were different since Griffin’s 
accident, and I was hoping with all my might ; I 
have a great capacity for hoping,’^ he said, with 
the shadow of a smile. 

‘‘You must not hope any longer.” 

“ I suppose I shall as long as I breathe.” 

“ But not — about me.” 

“ I shall — about you.^’ 

“ Then you will doit at your own risk.” 

“ I will take the risk.^’ 

The blue eyes were gazing with a steady burn- 
ing down into hers ; not for one instant did 
she waver ; those children were tugging at her 
heart, she did not love Giles Olmstead as she 
loved them. 

“You might have us — both.” 

“ I do not want you — both. I want them,” she 


392 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


cried, roused to unusual spirit. “ I do not under- 
stand youP 

“You shall, you must — some day,” he replied, 
with quiet determination, as he moved away. 

“I hope it wiJl be good for us both,” she return- 
ed, as lightly as she could speak, feeling held in 
the stronghold of his strength. It might be good 
to have a refuge, a shelter, a home, if she should 
want it, some time. How strange that such a 
happy thing as his love should be spoiled ! Spoiled 
because he was himself, or because she was herself? 

That afternoon, Giles and Griffin drove to Gen- 
evrier, and at night sent word that they would 
wander about a while, having found a farmer to 
take them in; letters came from Vevay and St. 
Leger; Griffin was gaining strength, they would 
would be back in time to take the “ three girls to 
Florence. 

The three girls were delighted to be together, 
as they were during the two months at Chateau 
d’Oex : Florence said the old “ system ” came back 
as soon as they were left uninterrupted, and the 
happy routine came of its accord. She must paint 
every flower that grew thereabouts, and read 
hours of French: how changed mamma would find 
her ! She would not regret having left her behind. 


FOREBODINGS. 


393 


“ Mrs. Olmstead, 1 am so unfit for what I have 
undertaken,” cried Kizpah, one morning in despair. 
“ I am frightened at myself for thinking it ; I want 
to give them everything.” 

“You and I must have a mother’s parliament; 
keep a daily record of everything that surprises 
you or bewilders you, and send it to me once a 
month. I will send you all the help I can get 
from books and other sources. Make a study of 
them. I am so sure that they will love you that, 
as yet, I have not thought of anything else you 
need to give them. Do not be in a hurry; get 
their love and confidence first, and teach without 
teaching them, by heing yourself. What a woman 
it will make of you.” 

“ But what kind of girls will it make of them ? 
asked Eizpah, doubtfully. “ I want them to be like 
the Chevils, not like me.” 

“We will take it for granted that each has an 
individual self that you are to develope, restrain, 
and guide; what a treat your monthly journal will 
be to me.” 

“I feel stronger, now that I have your expe- 
rience behind me ; last night, in the night, I almost 
gave it up; I was hopeless about myself; it seems 
presumption ; well, if I do not succeed, I will not 


394 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


selfishly hold on to them; I will give them up 
to some one who can do better.” 

“ Some one who can love them better,” said Mrs. 
Olmstead, kissing the troubled lips. 

‘‘ In the night — in a fit of homesickness, I 
thought of something to ask you.” 

“ Something you do not dare speak, now that the 
homesickness is over ? 

“ Only for fear of troubling you ; but wiU you 
make a book of ‘ Thoughts ' for me, just for me, 
and no one else ? I will keep it to read when 1 
am longing for you — I know 1 shall have to have 
one good homesick time all by myself before I 
fight it through.” 

“My dear,” in her motherly way, “I am glad 
you have spoken of it again ; I was trying to think 
what I could do for you. I did not think that 
would be much to you.” 

“ Next to having you — and nothing in the world 
would be like that.” 

Florence was going to her father and mother, 
and sisters ; she was going away from every one 
she loved, the very few she had to love, with no 
hope of meeting for years ; she was going to some- 
thing untried ; no wonder that in the still mid- 
night she trembled and was afraid. 


FOREBODINGS. 


395 


If the children could not love her — and had 
children ever loved her ? — she believed she would 
want to die with the disappointment and the 
shame of it. 

“ Mrs. Olmstead,” Florence looked up with a 
question in her eyes, “what do you want to go 
back to the world for — most ? ” 

“ Human beings, was the reply, so energetical- 
ly given, that both girls laughed. 

“ As if you hadn’t had — usP 
“I want several hundred — or thousand, more.” 
That evening a letter was brought to Eizpah ; 
the superscription was in a man’s business hand ; 
the postmark was Teignmouth. 

“ My dear Eizpah,” it ran, in the handwriting 
of Mrs. Morehouse, “ I fly to you, no one but you 
can help us. Poor little Matilda died yesterday, 
and Erma will kill herself and us with her grief ; 
her wails of anguish are something dreadful ; 
since that night I wrote GriflSn about, she has 
been inconsolable, weeping and wailing, and 
groaning, and screaming, and kicking, perfectly 
beside herself ; the physicians have had to quiet 
her with opiates ; since Matilda’s death she has 
not eaten one mouthful and cannot sleep. The 
doctor says she will not die, but her uncle fears 


396 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


she will either die or lose her reason. It satisfies 
her for a few moments to look at her sister ; once 
she touched her and gave a scream that almost 
frightened me out of my^ senses. Griffin must 
bring you immediately ; our hope is in you. She 
has taken an aversion to me because I had to shut 
her up one day. Come, come, for the love of 
mercy ! 

“Your loving friend, 

“ Helen Morehouse.”'^ 

Eizpah laid the letter before Mrs. Olmstead on 
the table under the lamp. 

“ I cannot wait for Griffin.” 

“But he is coming in the morning,” said Flor- 
ence, who had kept the secret two hours and a 
half, “ and I wanted to surprise you.” 

With her head on Mrs. Olmstead’s shoulder, 
Eizpah wept with the child who had lost her sis- 
ter. How well she remembered those days she 
had not slept or eaten, on Aunt Eizpah’s bed ! 

“ Here’s a postscript,” said Mrs. Olmstead, “ did 
you see this ? ” 

It was on another leaf, written two hours later. 

“ I have quieted her by telling her that some one 
is coming, some one who will love her as Matilda 
did — to sleep with her, and walk with her, and 


FOREBODINGS, 


397 


tell her stories ; a dear,, big sister, to stay with her 
all the time.” 

“ ‘ Is it Matilda coming back ? ’ she asked. I 
told her you were ‘ Eizpah,’ and she said the name 
over and over. 

Mr. M. will address this ; my nerves are too 
unstrung to put it in an envelope. What I have 
gone through nobody knows.” 

“ P. S. No 2. — She comes with her big eyes to 
look at me and ask: ‘ Is it a lie, or is it true, about 
Rizpah ? ’ ” 


XXXVII. 


A BIT OF HUMAT^^ NATUKE. 

Again, as in that morning at Chateau d’Oex, 
Eizpah was surrounded by piles of things upon 
chairs and upon the floor ; something in the confu- 
sion reminded her of that morning and of Griffin’s 
face at the door. Now it was evening, and she 
had closed the window to keep out the chill of the 
mountain air ; the lamp with the green shade stood 
upon her wash stand, a dress or two was thrown 
across the footboard, a pair of slippers had some- 
how found their way to the top of the bureau, and 
a bottle of cologne had tipped headlong into a box 
of collars ; when a knock at the door came this 
time, she stood with her hand on the lifted lid of 
her trunk, with not a trace of the ‘‘ packing ” man- 
ner about her. 

The knock announced Mrs. Olmstead, with the 
offer of help. 

“ Eizpah, sit down, and let me do it.” 

( 398 ) 


A BIT OF HUMAN NATURE. 


899 


Rizpah obeyed by dropping into the nearest 
chair, and taking the bandbox from it into her lap. 

‘‘It is sudden,” remarked Mrs. Olmstead, taking 
a general survey. 

“ Perhaps that is it; I feel so overcome.” 

“ I wish Giles were here; he is a stronghold in 
his mere presence.” 

“Yes,” assented Eizpah’s lips; a second after- 
ward they opened impulsively. “ I want to speak 
to you about him before I go ; Ido not want you 
to misunderstand me.” 

“I hardly think I could,” with the slightest pos- 
sible smile. 

“Then will you tell me why — ” 

“ Why you do not love him ? ” 

“ Yes,” answered Eizpah, surprised at the form 
of the question. 

Mrs. Olmstead seemed so ‘ young ^ to-night, 
in her green dress, with her hair waving on each 
side of her low forehead, the color in her cheeks, 
the girlish attitude, half leaning against the foot- 
board with her hands upon it, that Eizpah felt as 
if she were another girl, if indeed she were a 
girl berself to-night. 

“I would like to know that; I came so near to it, 
and fell so far short of it.” 


400 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


“ You do not know him well enough.” 

Evident surprise kept Eizpah silent. 

‘‘ What do you know of him ? ” 

“ What do I not ? All his boyhood — brave, un- 
selfish boyhood — and his strong, self-reliant man- 
hood.” 

‘‘ Describe him to me as though I were a sympa- 
thetic listener and had never heard his name before.” 

It was a moment, or longer, before Eizpah spoke 
the first word. 

“ He is handsome, the handsomest man I know, 
but that does not touch me at all; I think I would 
like him better if he were plain ; I like his manner, 
that touches me ; I wished for him to-night ; it is 
without self-consciousness ; entirely self-forgetful, 
he thinks only of you ; you think of him through 
what he says of others. I love him for that When 
I think of it, there is nothing about him that I do 
not honor and admire; I wish I didn’t; I could 
love him better, if I could find some fault in him.” 

“ I find faults in him,” said his mother, with a 
trouble in her eyes, that Eizpah was too self-absorb- 
ed to notice. 

“ He does not need me in anything ; he is suffi- 
cient in himself; his mind is satisfied with his 
studies, and his writing, and his soul in its own 


A BIT OF HUMAN NATURE, 


401 


spiritual light apart from anything I ever say ; his 
heart is in loving yon and GriflSn — what does he 
need of me V ” 

“You might trust him to judge.” 

“ He has never told me ; he never acts as though 
he needed me in anything. I wish I could see 
him angry, then I would feel that he has a temper, 
like mine, or hear him say some impatient word — 
but he is so self-contained, and self- controlled. 
Now I know — he isn’t human enough; he keeps 
that side of himself away from me. I love Griffin, 
when he is headlong, and headstrong, bitter and 
furious, and weak and human, and needs me. 
But I never did anything for Giles that any one 
could not do as well or better; Griffin says 1 help 
him every day.” 

“ Do you love Griffin ? ” 

“ Yes,^^ with a smile, “ I love him every day, as 
I do Erma.” 

“ Do you want to love Giles that way ? ” 

“Yes,” with longing in the impulsive tone, “I 
wish I could ! If he should cut his finger, I would 
love him better after I saw the blood. I never see 
his heart’s blood ; I only see the perfect outside of 
him. He would not come to me one day when I 

called him, because his hands were soiled; if he 
26 


402 


jRIZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


only knew it, that dirt on his hands would have 
brought us nearer together. His hands are too 
spotless, his nails are too handsome; I want to see 
him as humanly as I see Griffin. I want to see his 
real, naughty, human heart, bursting out in words 
and actions.” 

“You should have known him when he was a 
boy.” 

“ Was he bad then ? ” 

“ He was very boyish — he is very mannish as 
well as manly, when he is alone with me. His 
faults are not on the surface, I confess. In polish- 
ing himself, he has destroyed some of the natural 
beauties; self-repression may repress some good 
thing. He works at himself with rule and chisel.” 

“ Is he angry, and impatient, and selfish, and 
hard ? It would do me a world of good, to hear 
him confess himself a sinner in some jparticidar 
way ; for I know he can’t be as perfect as he seems 
to me.” 

“ He seems far from perfect to himself.” 

“Why doesn’t he show me his natural self?” 
she burst out impatiently, “ does he think I can 
love some one wffio is like a character in a book to 
me ? And then — he never shows that he loves me ; 
Griffin shows me every time he speaks to me, that 


A BIT OF HUMAN NATURE. 


403 


I am something to him, but I would never have 
guessed that Giles ever thought of me, if he had 
not said so ! He loves me as if I were a picture or a 
statue; he loves you, I know,. but he never shows 
it as Griffin shows that he loves his mother ! He 
is as measured with you as with me.” 

“ I am not his own mother.” 

“ It isn’t that; it isn’t the lack of love. He loves 
Griffin, and how does he show it ? In his strong, 
sure manner, but not as Griffin shows it for him.” 

“ Can you not describe Giles without this com- 
parison ? ” 

“No; for I want in him something that Griffin 
has in him ; I want the human nature, and the de- 
monstrativeness. That is what I mean. Giles 
has no demonstration ; he would risk his life on 
the mountains to find you if you were lost, and 
after he had found you, that would be the end of 
it. I must have that demonstrative love, or noth- 
ing. Aunt Eizpah gave it to me every hour, and 
I lived for her, and could have died for her. Grif- 
fin gives it to me, and Florence and you ! And 
Erma will ! She will put her arms around my neck 
and hold on to me; she will love me as I want to 
be loved. Now I know why my heart has kept it- 
self back from him. It has been chilled back into 


404 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


itself. He is like some one in a book to me; I hon- 
or him, 1 admire him, he would be a stronghold 
in trouble; I can do everything but love him. I 
have tried so hard ! I have tried too hard ! Love 
does not have to try. It loves of itself.” 

Eizpah’s rapid words were interrupted by her 
tears; she covered her face with her hands, and 
sobbed. 

“ I do not believe he loves me; I think 1 have 
never believed it ; he has a strong wi% and it is as 
much to have his own way, as anything else.^^ 

It was true, it was all too true ; his step-mother, who 
had known him since his early boyhood, could not 
contradict one word of it. His nature was not warm ; 
it found no vent in loving words or in caresses; 
his love was like a current, silent, swift, strong ; it 
never burst out in unexpected places, it ran its 
course in its own deep channel; perhaps, in a 
freshet, it might burst out, and overflow its banks; 
but was one to wait all one’s life for a freshet ? 
A woman like Kizpah, a woman like herself, want- 
ed a freshet every day. 

“ My dear, I know all this better than you; he 
is like his father, and I was his father’s wife. I 
have fallen asleep many a night in tears because 
no kiss, and no word of appreciation had come to me 


A BIT OF HUMAN NATURE. 


405 


through the day ; he called me ‘ darling ’ for the 
first time, the day he died. For five years how I 
longed for that word that never came. It seemed 
to me that I was almost willing to have him die 
for the sake of it. I was proud in those days, so 
sensitive that a look silenced me ; he never spoke 
one unkind, nncourteous word to me; he kissed me 
if he went away on a journey, and when he return- 
ed ; he never kissed little Giles, and I was ashamed 
to, because he did not. We were very happy to- 
gether, we three, and those two never dreamed 
that I missed anything ; in my own home we nev- 
er said good-night, without the good-night kiss ; 
and when I was a big girl, my father held me as 
if I were a baby. Some families are not demon- 
strative; my husband’s sisters are not; it runs 
in Giles’ blood to be as he is ; if a woman can con- 
tent herself with a life of devotion — unspoken de- 
votion, a devotion that does not need to satisfy it- 
self with caresses, or with words and looks, that 
woman may be a happy wife with Giles Olmstead.” 

“ Were you happy enough ? ” 

How eagerly she had followed every word ! 
How perfectly she understood ! 

“ I was very happy.” 

“ Happy enough ? ” persisted Kizpah. 


406 


RIZ PAH'S HERITAGE, 


“ I was not satisfied.” 

“ Do you think I would be ? ” 

“ You would be satisfied less than I.” 

“But — ” with a wistful intonation, “do not peo- 
ple change ? ” 

“ Sometimes.” 

“Why did not his father change?” 

“ Because I grew more and more shy with him ; 
at first, I ran to him as I had to my father, but it 
seemed to annoy him; I needed but one repulse. 
One day he gave me the slightest push — had he 
lived, and grown old with me, it might have been 
difierent — but I do not encourage you to hope it. 
Giles has his inheritance from both his father and 
his mother. I think GriflSn’s demonstrative ways 
worry him; he sees no need of them. I remember 
— I would say this to no one but you — I said once 
to his father : ‘ Wont you say you love me ? ’ With 
a displeased look he said, ‘ I proved that when I 
asked you to marry me.’ One day he said that no 
man could bear patiently, the strain of a continual 
demand; when he gave, he must give spon- 
taneously; a confession of regard must not be 
extorted.” 

“ I couldn’t stand that,” cried impetuous Eizpah. 
“ I should want to run away.” 


A BIT OF HUMAN NATURE. 


407 


“ I did not want to ; he was thoughtful of me in 
many ways; I was his ‘darling’ all the time, and 
he told me so before it was too late.” 

Mrs. Olmstead brushed her tears away with a 
smile, and lifted the dress from the footboard to 
shake it out and fold it. With renewed resolve in 
her heart and manner, Eizpah went about her pack- 
ing; but before she did a thing she kissed Mrs. 
Olmstead. 

“ I was afraid I was too different from other girls, 
and that it came through some — inheritance. But 
I’m glad I am like you.” 

That night Mrs. Olmstead tossed upon her pillow 
until dawn ; had she wronged her husband’s son ? 
In his silent, undemonstrative ways, he remind- 
ed her every hour of his father; and this girl, with 
her passionate heart, was less able to bear it than 
herself had been ! Eizpah would harden under its 
influence; she, herself, had not softened. Would 
she have done better to keep silent ? Giles was 
young, he had loved this girl so long and steadfastly ; 
was it a defect ? Might she not learn to be content, 
yea, satisfied without daily assurance of what she 
was assured was true ? Was not this demand weak- 
ness in a woman — was not this self-restraint 
strength in a man ? But there was her own father ! 


408 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE. 


And how often God told his children of his love ! 
W as his love not continually ‘‘ demonstrative ? ” 

The beloved John must have been of the demon- 
strative kind; was there not spoken love in that 
home in Bethany ? How did John know that J esus 
“ loved ” Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus ? 

As for Rizpah, she cried a little, out of some kind 
of a feeling, and went to sleep and dreamed of hold- 
ing Erma in her lap. 

In some measure she had learned hy this year’s 
experience something of what those five years were 
to the wife of Giles Olmstead’s father ; she was 
assured now that a warm, demonstrative love from 
her teacher in Aunt Eizpah’s days would have 
brought out all that was loving in herself ; it was 
not that she was heartless, it was that she was 
repressed, kept down ; she could not grow respon- 
sive in a cloudy day, even if she knew the sun were 
behind the clouds ; something in her might grow 
to admiration and honest regard, but not to the 
natural, responsive love that Aunt Eizpah had 
touched to its very depths. Not that she put it to 
herself in this way ; she did not put it to herself at 
all; she only felt that if her heart were not wide 
open to him, he had but himself to blame. 

It must be this that she had missed all the time. 


XXXVIII. 


FAST ASLEEP. 

In saying that his persistence was as much to 
have his own way as anything else, Rizpah had 
divined the truth ; he had said to Griffin that he had 
never failed in anything he had set his mind on ; if 
he failed in winning Rizpah Chevil it would be his 
first unsuccessful striving and waiting; but he did 
not say to himself, not having perfect understanding 
of the deceitfulness of his own heart, that if he had 
won her easily his love would have been of short 
duration ; it was his nature to appreciate his success 
by the measure of his own effort to attain ; a flower 
that he would have tossed away in disdain at the 
foot of the mountain was his most precious treasure 
when plucked after the toil of climbing to the top. 
His devotion to Griffin was greatly in the line of 
self-interest; under the self-forgetful courtesy of 
his manner was a mine of solid selfishness. No one 
understood this more perfectly than the woman 
who had loved and understood his father. 

( 409 ) 


410 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


Rizpah felt it without at all understanding it ; her 
own nature was too unselfish to fathom selfishness. 

“ Do not people change ? ” she had asked Mrs. 
01m stead. 

“ Hearts are changed, made wholly new, by the 
grace of God, but who that has ever known a self- 
ish man or a selfish woman, knew that nature to 
be changed in a day, or a year ; who has not seen 
a trace of the old selfishness unsubdued after years 
of prayer and patience ? ” 

Before Griffin had been at home ten minutes, 
Rizpah gave him his mother’s letter, and said that 
she would be ready to start in five minutes. He 
returned the letter without one word of expostula- 
tion. 

“ If I were the child 1 should want you ; I will 
take you to her.” 

“ What will become of us ? ” cried Florence, who 
did not understand why Rizpah should not travel 
alone. 

“ Oh, something dreadful will happen to you ! ” 
cried Griffin. “ Giles will drown you in the lake, 
and his mother will lose you in the mountains.” 

“ Not both in the same day,” laughed Florence, 
trying bravely to keep the tears back ; shall we 
go to Florence without you ? ” 


FAST ASLEEP, 


411 


“That will be the best plan ; my mother may 
want to keep me awhile ; you forget that I am not 
yet acquainted with my step-father.” 

“ Then we shan’t have May in Florence.” The 
disappointed tears would start. 

“ You will have Pater, you will have them all ; 
you wont miss me ! ” he answered, teazingly. “I’ll 
write to everybody every day.” 

“ I wish I wasn’t so selfish,” burst out Florence. 
“ I am thinking more of myself than of that poor, 
little darling who has lost her sister. Suppose it 
were Bud ! I should think you would hate me.” 

do,” he answered, seriously, “just as bad as 
ever. And occasions like this bring it out. Eiz- 
pah, where is your bonnet ? And your satchel ? 
And your shawl strap ? ” 

“ Let us speed our parting guests,” proposed 
Giles, who had stood apart listening ; “ let us go 
the first half day with them.^’ 

“ And the second ! ” said Florence, brightening, 
“ why didn’t they send for all of us ? ” 

“And not come back here, but go on to Flor- 
ence,” added Giles. 

“ Splendid ! Splendid ! ” cried Florence, “ and 
then I’ll count the days for mamma and Pater to 
come for me.” 


412 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ Is it oTir final good-bye to you, Miss Eizpah ? ” 
inquired Giles. 

“ Final ! ” in bewilderment. “Oh, I hope not ! 
I don’t know what will become of me next.” 

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to let us 
know.” 

“ Kind enough to myself,’’ said Eizpah. 

“ Eizpah, you haven’t said good-bye to the 
mountains ! ” reproached Florence. 

“ They will go with me — forever.” 

“ And Florence will stay with them forever, if 
she doesn’t rush around and get ready ; per- 
haps she intends to travel in a white morning 
dress,” said Griffin, who boasted that he could 
start on a tour around the world at fifteen min- 
utes’ notice. ’ 

When they parted, Eizpah said to Mrs. 01m- 

stead: “I haven’t had so much motive va. my life 

✓ 

since the night Aunt Eizpah died ; I would think 
it nothing to travel for a year with such a glad- 
ness at the end.” 

Night and day the weary, blue eyes watched 
for the “dear, big sister” who was coming from 
away off, from Heaven, perhaps, and in the morn- 
ing, waking early, she asked, starting up eagerly : 
“ Has she come ? ” 


FAST ASLEEP, 


413 


At night she pleaded: “Wake me np if she 
comes when I am asleep.” 

And she came while she was asleep ; the tear- 
stained little face was pressed into the pillow, the 
chubby hands were fast together, the long hair 
was rumpled and caught in a button of her night- 
' dress ; such a childish, old-fashioned little thing, 
even in her sleep. 

“ Darling,” whispered the big sister. 

“ Don^t disturb her,” cried Mrs. Morehouse, “she 
is tired out with watching for you. The times she 
has opened the door, and ran out on the pavement 
to look up and down, I couldn’t count. She made 
me nervous enough to fly, and I had to scold her 
at last.” 

“ But I promised her, ma’am,” said the nurse, a 
middle-aged woman with motherly eyes, “ and she 
will never believe me again.” 

“You will have your hands full, that’s all,” mut- 
tered Mrs. Morehouse. “ She will keep awake all 
night.” 

“ I think not,” said Rizpah, sitting down beside 
the couch, and taking both the chubby hands into 
her own. “ Erma, little girl ! Your sister has come.” 

The sleepy eyes opened wide. 

“Has she come ?” she asked, springing up. 


414 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


And then with a child’s faith, as she felt the 
clasp of somebody’s arms and the touch of some- 
body’s lips, she wound both arms about Rizpah’s 
neck and laid her head with perfect content upon 
her bosom. 

Not the baby Rizpah slept more sweetly in Aunt 
Rizpah’s arms that first night than did the child 
who had lost father and mother and sister, beside 
the dear, big sister who had come to her from 
Heaven. 

The next day, when she ajked; “Did you come 
from Heaven ? ” 

Rizpah replied: “No, dear, but the Lord up in 
Heaven, who loves all the little children on the 
earth, sent me to you.” 

“Will he take you away, as he took my other 
sister?” ^ 

“ I think not — I hope not. I do believe he 
means us to have the best time together two sis- 
ters ever had.” 

Erma’s reply was an embrace and a kiss. 

“ I like your black hair, and your face, and your 
hands.” 

Erma’s old Ayah had said that the child was 
made of love. 

The first story Rizpah told her was about a little 


FAST ASLEEP. 


415 


baby who had no father, or mother, or sister, and 
how she was all alone and crying in the dark, and 
a dear old woman found her and washed her clean, 
and put pretty clothes on her, and fed her, and 
put her in a soft, warm bed, and was so good to 
her every day. And when she asked for it again, 
she asked for the story of the “ found baby.” 


XXXIX. 


THOUGHTS FOE JUNE. 

One evening Eizpah sat alone in the handsome 
room she shared with Erma ; the child lay asleep, 
the plump, happy face a picture of lovely child- 
hood ; she had been naughty to-day, and sister 
Eizpah had taken her on her lap, and talked to 
her lovingly but very firmly, until the tears had 
come in a sudden shower with penitent kisses and 
promises, and then the broken utterance: “ Will 
you — tell God — I am sorry ? ” 

The face bent over Eizpah’s work was as happy 
as the face of the child asleep ; Griffin told her 
that every morning he found a new story in her 
eyes. 

Awhile ago, Mrs. Morehouse, elegant in black 
velvet and sparkling with diamonds, had come in 
to be admired and to ask if her hair were becom- 
ingly arranged ; then there was a bustle on the 

stairs and in the halls, the closing of the street 
( 416 ) 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE. 


417 


door, and the rolling away of the carriage ; her 
husband’s whispered words brought the color to 
her cheek ; her son, in loving admiration, told her 
that she was the very picture of health and happi- 
ness. 

Three happy faces : the child asleep, the maiden 
bent over her work, and the wife and mother 
elated with the gratification of her own pride and 
in having the desires of her heart. Griffin carried 
the three faces with him over the sea. 

“ Every woman there to-night will not have an 
escort like mine,” said his mother. “ I am proud 
of you both, my husband and my son.” 

After the carriage rolled away there was not a 
sound in the house ; Eizpah never felt alone when 
she had Erma, whether the child were awake or 
asleep ; there was always, beside her presence, 
the memory of to-day and the thought of to- 
morrow. 

On the table beside her, within touch of her 
hand, she kept the ‘‘Thoughts for June,’^ that had 
come to her the last week in May. Florence had 
painted the lettering upon the cover and the 
bunch of pansies. 

In addition to the lettering were the words : “ TTds 

is the will of God^ even your sanctification.'' She took 
27 


418 


KIZPAH’S HERITAGE. 


it up to read the thought for to-day, and to re-read 
the thought of yesterday ; then catching a phrase 
she read on and on, and did not lay it aside until 
she had read every word. Every word was meant 
for her. 

‘^June First . — ‘YetiniAis thing ye did not be- 
lieve the Lord your God.’ Can you say of any- 
thing, in this thing I do not believe God ? Are you 
proving in any distrust, in any small anxiety, that 

in some one thing you do not believe him ? 

‘ who went in the way before you.’ If we study our 
lives and get hold of his intention, his will for us, 
running, the brightest thread, through all its warp 
and woof, we can see how indeed he has been in 
the w^ay before us, searching out a place for us. 

'■'■Second . — We are bidden to take good heed un- 
to oursdves. As if one’s self might be an enemy. 
Certainly one’s self is some one to be understood. 
It is well to take our faults (as well as our sins) 
singly, and pray over them. The fault of haste in 
judgment, is the one I am taking heed to myself 
about in these days. 

“ Third . — ‘The Lord thy God hath blessed thee 
in all the works of thy hand.’ Take nothing into 
your hand that you cannot ask his blessing on. I 
am fixing over my green dress (the one you like) ; 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE. 


419 


this thought came to me as I sat sewing on it : 
how can I be blessed in this ? How does it matter ? 
A letter from one of my school girls answered the 
question. ‘ Mary Eice says when she is as old as 
Mrs. Olmstead she hopes she wilHiave that young- 
ness and freshness in her talk and dress, that will 
prove to girls that a woman needn’t be dried up in 
the streams that flow out of girlhood; she says 
your green dress one day helped her to tell you 
one of her secrets, and ask you what she should do. 
You may be sure that made me happy.’ 

“ Fourth . — “ I will not give thee of their land,’ the 
Lord said unto Moses. 

“ If we will not be rebellious, but listen, he will 
tell us’what he will not give us : when we pray on, 
and on, for something denied at last, is it not be- 
cause we would not listen to his voice in the plain 
ways of his providence ? I had an experience once 
to prove this to myself. I wanted it so that I would 
not give up hoping or praying, when I could not but 
see that it was being denied. I thought my faith 
was triumphant because I held on. My rebellion 
held on ; my faith was nothing but presumption. 
I would not take his denial through his providences ; 
I wonder now what I expected; he showed me 
plainly: ‘ I will not give thee,’ but 1 shut my ears 


420 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


and my eyes and rebelled on, and prayed on. That 
kind of prayer Y^as rebellion and presumption and 
unbelief; and I was pluming myself all the time 
on my faith, holding on to some of the promises, 
and forgetting the very foundation of them all: ‘ If 
ye abide in me, and my words abide in you — ’ 

“ Fifth . — ‘ And the Lord said unto me, Behold I 
have begun to give — ’ 

“ Oh, the joyfulness of that assurance ! Given 
to faith, not to presumption, to submission, not to 
rebellion ! 

“ Sixth . — The Lord said unto Moses : ‘ Let it suf- 
fice thee, speak no more unto me of this matter.’ 
“ Does that sound harsh ? Let my will satisfy 
thee. Is not that .all we desire of him ? Suffice 
thee ! Be sufficient for thee. We are sure Moses 
was sufficed — he had enough — he had God’s will. 
Would you ask for anything else after that ? He 
bids us speak no more, sometimes, by the assurance 
he gives us, that we shall have what we ask. He 
gave it to me once, without the shadow of evidence 
of the thing itself. But that came afterward; I 
was as sure of it before I had it, as afterward. 
But that was only once, in all my years of prayer. 
A friend, twenty years older than I, with twenty 
more years of praying, writes me that she has never 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE, 


421 


once had that assurance. My husband had it once ; 
from actual experience, I cannot speak of any 
other. Is it so rare among those whom God hears 
and answers ? I wish I knew. 

’‘"‘Seventh . — Jonah prayed in anger. Elijah pray- 
ed in discouragement. The disciples in the storm 
prayed in unbelief, and were rebuked for their little 
faith. Once the people were commanded to ask 
for rain, in the time of rain. It will be too late, by- 
and-by , for Erma to ask you to dress her doll ; that 
time will be past. If she does not ask you for 
some things, she will lose them forever ; you will 
not know that she cares enough for them to have 
them ; God knows that we care enough when we 
care enough to ask. He is continually proving 
us. Because it is the time for rain, will it not naU 
urally come ? God thought it worth while to bid 
his people ask for it — even then, in the time of it. 
When you pray for your little charge, ask for 
things in the time of them for her. It is seedtime 
now with her. It is seed time with her as it is not 
with Mrs. Morehouse. 

“ Eighth , — ‘ Take heed unto yourselves lest ye for- 
get.’ Do not let the new things in our lives tako 
the place of the old truths he would have us re- 
member; it is so easy and natural for to-day to 


422 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


push away yesterday. Would it not be well for us 
to keep a daily record of what we must not forget ? 
To-day I would write: I must not forget that I, 
myself, may be my own greatest hindrance. 

‘'‘Ninth . — Wrote one of my girls to me: I keep 
thinking that this will have an end; my nice 
things always do come to an end. I had to reply, 
(knowing her so well), ‘If it does come to an end 
it will be because of yourself as much (and more) as 
because of anything else.’ I am not afraid that 
you and Erma will come to ‘ an end.’ 

‘'Tenth . — ‘ And the Lord heard the voice of your 
words which ye spake unto me' Do you not love 
to think that he hears every word we speak, not to 
himself only, but to every one ? He hears every 
w'ord you speak to Erma and to Griffin, and his 
eye sees every word you write to me. 

“ Eleventh . — ‘ The Lord thy God hath cho«eu thee 
to be a special people.’ If he has chosen you, you 
cannot be like the people he has not chosen ; how 
must you and Erma be different? What are his 
‘special^ people like? Mrs. Chevil tells me that 
Florence is ‘changed.’ She is not disappointed in 
her; she says she has lost nothing worth keeping, 
and gained much worth ha^dng. 

“ Twelfth . — ‘ That he might humble thee, and 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE, 


423 


that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy lat- 
ter end' See what we have to look forward to. 
Every year so good, the next year better ! The 
humbling and proving is not so hard to bear if we 
keep this end in view. 

“ Thirteenth . — ‘And it shall be if thou do, at alh 
forget the Lord thy God.’ Not even a little for- 
getting, not even for a little while. He will not 
be crowded out (for our sakes) not even by the 
sweetest things he gives us, for nothing is so good 
for us as himself. 

“ Fourteenth . — When God is so good to us and 
gives us so much of himself and his good things 
in the good land he brings us to, is it not natural 
for us to think that he must see something in us 
to reward ? Something in us that will bear fruit 
in return for the good of his sunshine? Some- 
thing that pays ? Fearing such a self-congratula- 
tion, he warns us: ‘ Speak not then in thine heart 
— for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me 
in to possess this land.’ Their righteousness did 
not bring them into the land, but their unright- 
eousness, their disobedience, their idolatry, cast 
them out. How God punishes loving more than 
himself any person, or anything beside ! It 
frightens me as I write. They could not even 


I 


424 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE, 


make the liheness of anything, male or female, of 
anything in earth, air, or water, for fear of bring- 
ing themselves into the snare of idolatry ; the 
Lord dared not reveal any similitude of himself 
that day he spoke out of the fire, for fear they 
would worship that similitude. The image of him- 
self that he has dared to give us, is Christ ; and 
him we may and must worship, as we worship 
God the Father. Can the most loving, loyal 
heart yearn for more than it may find in Christ ? 
I am tempted to copy just here some words of an 
old Irish hymn ; it may be a fragment, or the 
whole ; Giles brought it to me with the remark 
that he was beginning to understand it. 

^ Christ with me, Christ before me, 

Christ behind me, Christ within me, 

Christ beneath me, Christ above me, 

Christ at my right, Christ at my left, 

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, 
Christ in the month of every man who speaks to me, 
Christ in every eye that sees me, 

Christ in every ear that hears me.^ 

“ Fifteenth . — I must give you a bit of a conver- 
sation between an English lady and myself ; 
evidently she was out of patience with something 
I had said to Florence. She made the remark: 
“We English do not take holy names upon our 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE, 


425 


lips as carelessly as you Americans.’ Now I re- 
member what it was ; Florence said to me : ‘Ido 
not know what to think.’ And I said, in a low tone, 
intended for her ear alone : ‘You will know, 
dear, when you have read what the Lord says.’ I 
replied to our English friend: ‘I have heard you 

speak of Lord a dozen times to-day.’ ‘ Because 

I admire him, and his opinions are a great deal to 
me.’ ‘Will you allow me to say that I admire the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and his opinions are a great 
deal to me?’ ‘But,’ (very sharply) ‘I do not 
believe that the Bible commands us to talk / the 
command is to do.’ ‘ In a very old-fashioned part 
of the Bible, addressed to a very old-fashioned 
people, you may read this command : ‘ These 
words which I command thee this day shall be in 
thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently 
unto thy children, and shall talk of them when 
thou sittest in thine house — ’ ‘But times have 
changed,’ with (irritation). ‘ The One who gave 
the command has not changed.’ ‘ It was meant, 
like other things, for that time and that people,’ 
(with an air of relief at having struck at the foun- 
dation of things). ‘ The Apostles spoke for these 
times and these people. Peter speaks of stirring 
up his friends by putting them in remembrance — 


426 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


‘ I will not be negligent to put you in remembrance 
of these things, though ye Jcnow them' ‘ We can’t 
all be apostles,’ (shortly). ‘ But we may all be 
disciples.’ It would be a queer kind of a world if 
everybody tried to be like the disciples.’ And 
then Giles broke in with a laugh: ‘As queer as 
Heaven, Mrs. Spencer,’ and she laughed very good 
humoredly and said : ‘ I beg your pardon, but I 
am not accustomed to living with the disciples, and 
it seems odd to me.’ No one more than I has a 
horror of dragging in the precious ‘ Names,’ but I 
equally have a horror of going a roundabout 
W'ay to avoid the mention of the name of Christ or 
God. A reverent speaking of his name is impres- 
sive to me. Our speech must be with grace, sea- 
soned vdth salt. Don’t you love the flavor of that ? 

Sixteenth . — ^You say that some things seem so 
far ofi* to you, so impossible to do, if you stay 
where you are; and you feel that you are in the 
place meant for you to stay. So do L What shall 
you do about it? Let us go back to the Lord’s 
will for his people in their new home. 

“ He told them that he would choose a place for 
them to come and bring all that he commanded 
them to bring — sacrifices, tithes, and choice vows (I 
like choice vows). There seems no appeal from that; 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE. 


427 


no matter how weary the way, they must go, were 
they ill, aged, or had they little ones at home ; to 
be accepted, they must go to the place the Lord 
had chosen. Is that the way you feel about some 
things you would love to do, that you are command- 
ed to do ? I do. And this makes my way plain. 
‘ If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen 
to put his name there, he too far from thee thou shalt 
eat in thy gates ’ — at home, without the weary jour- 
ney that you have not strength for. 

“ But as I ponder and read, I find that every 
animal eaten in the wilderness designed for food, 
had to be slain as a peace-offering, at the door 
of the tabernacle; the encampment being round 
about the altar, made the way not too long, as it 
would be when the people were scattered in their 
homes, in the new land; so this refers only 
to the daily eating. What now about the sacri- 
fices, and tithes, and choice vows? How heavy 
they might become on a long journey ! Should they 
therefore not be taken ? The way is too long, the 
things are too heavy, am I excused altogether? 
No; but I will take a little, as much as I can carry; 
surely it will be accepted. The Lord is so merciful 
he would not have me faint by the way. My tithes 
shall be according to my strength, my peace offer- 


428 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


ings very small, my choice vows so choice as 
not to amount to much. I will carry all I can. 
Are you satisfied ? I am not. I want to do all, 
and give all. But how can I ? Now read. ‘ And 
if the way be too long for thee, or that you are not 
able to carry it (that is for me), or if the place be 
too far from thee which the Lord thy God shall 
choose — (it is his choosing — he chose that place 
for himself when he chose your home so far away 
from it) — thou art relieved — no; it does not say 
that ; another shall carry it for thee, no; it does 
not say that, but it does say this : ‘ Then thou shalt 
turn it into money and hind up the money in thine 
hand^ There is no way out of it; selfishness has 
no excuse of way or weariness or weakness to 
plead ! The tithes and sacrifices and vows must be 
paid, and you must go, and carry them yourself ! 
But he has found a way for you. Aren’t you glad 
that we can do all that we are commanded ? How 
all our needs are taken into the account. He will 
not make his way shorter, his requirements less, or 
change your circumstances, but he will find an 
easier way for you to do his will. He will accom- 
modate himself to you; make the offering small 
enough for your hand ; fit himself to your human 
nature. Now, can we not find a way, has he not 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE. 


429 


found a way, for us to do that thing we thought 
too hard ? Ask him to show you how you can 
change your own especial burden to money in your 
hand — to something small enough for you to hold. 
He not only fits us to the burden, but he shapes 
the burden to us. 

^^Seventeenth . — It may be that I am writing out 
of my own heart something that you have no need 
of to-day; lay it away, then, the time may come 
when the truth will fit in. Only of that which I have, 
have I to give. I am reminded of an experience 
told by a dear old friend, when she was giving my 
girls a Bible reading. Said she : ‘ I was in a great 
deal of trouble, and had gone to my room to weep 
and pray ; it seemed as if no one had just my 
trouble, and no one could help me ; I was praying 
in an agony of grief and tears when the maid 

knocked at the door, saying that Mrs. was 

down-stairs waiting to speak to me. She was a poor 
widow, who was always coming to me with her 
troubles, and I felt that I had nothing new to say 
to her ; beside I was in no fit condition to be seen, 
so I sent the maid away with the message that I 
could not see her to-day, I would see her to-morrow. 
Then in self-reproach I sprang up from my knees; 
had not the Lord sent her to me ? Was I not self- 


430 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


ish in my sorrow ? I hastened down, and found 
her on the point of departing. She poured out her 
full heart to me with a new sorrow, and how was I 
amazed to learn that her trouble was identical with 
mine; the very same thing. And she had come to 
me as I had gone to the Lord. I told her all I 
knew; I gave her all that comforted me, and after 
she left I went back to my room to weep and pray 
again, and, to my great astonishment, as well as 
relief, found that I had no tears, no groans; the 
Lord had helped me, taught me, eased my heart 
while I was giving to the poor woman. ‘ Of that 
wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, 
thou shalt give.’ Some one needs to be comforted; 
he gives you the comfort to give; does it have to 
come through your heartache ? How has the lov- 
ing kindness of the Father come to us ? Through 
what heartache of the Son ? The sufferers are the 
comforters in this world. What shall we give? 
Of that wherewith we are blessed. How shall we 
give ? ‘ Every man shall give — according to the 

blessing of the Lord.’ I desire my jubilee year to 
be all giving, as my life has been all blessing. I 
was glad to hear you say, that you wanted to be 
getting ready for your own jubilee year. 

“ Eighteenth , — I like your idea of writing out in 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE. 


431 


full every word from the Bible that comes to you 
with force. That will increase the force ; I have done 
it for some time, as well as to mark the passages 
in the Book. Sometimes when I have been very 
weary I have looked through for the marked places 
and they have been to me springs of water in a 
thirsty land. You did not know there was any- 
thing in the Word about this, did you? I did not 
(should I be ashamed to confess it ?) until to-day. 
To-day I read: ‘he shall write him a copy of this 
law in a book — and it shall be with him, and he 
shall read therein all the days of his life.’ If this 
were good for the spiritual growth of the king, 
why not for us ? No wonder the one hundred and 
nineteenth Psalm was written. The law of the 
Lord in different phrases is mentioned in every 
verse. If David wrote a copy of the Law, how 
could he but write that Psalm in praise of it and 
love of it ! When I told the girls of your plan of 
copying the Bible word that was suggestive and 
forceful to you, Bee replied: ‘But, oh, that is such 
a bother ! ’ ‘ I’ve heard of as hard work done, just 

as much bother, in learning a language,* said I. 
‘We have to be thorough if we would learn a lan- 
guage,' was her reply. ‘This is God’s Word -his 
language, I said. Mrs. Chevil came to the rescue: 


432 


RIZ PAH'S HERITAGE. 


‘ She thinks there is some easier way of learning 
the Bible.’ ‘ I do not know of any study that 
requires such hard work/ I had to say, ‘and it 
seems to be the only one that we are supposed to 
learn without taking any trouble.’ ‘The ministers 
teach us,’ said Mrs. Spencer. ‘ As the Professors 
of Languages do ; but I notice that Mrs. Chevil 
says : ‘ Bud, are you ready for your teacher to- 
day ? Bee, is your Italian written out?’ ‘Well, 
that’s exclaimed Mrs. Spencer. So it is. 

And people have to be ‘different,’ too. Later, 
Florence came to me and inquired how you did it. 
I let her read these Thoughts, and a set for August 
I am writing for somebody at home. ‘ Oh, if I 
could only have some,’ she said, and how could I 
refuse ? Hers are to be for July. I think I shall 
take this for my special work this jubilee year. I 
have decided to remember many of my married 
pupils in this way ; only a thought a day, that 
will not be tedious and stupid for them. Giles 
calls it my Jubilee Calendar. Florence has asked 
to do the lettering on the covers. I am glad that 
penmanship has been one of my specialties ; for I 
wish my homemade type to be handsome as well 
as plain. T am glad I can serve him even in the 
mechanical work of ray pen. 1 like to think that 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE, 


433 


^Holiness to the Lord ' is inscribed upon my gold pen. 
Giles says that in my Indian summer I am writing 
for the spring. It is not bad for girls to have 
Indian summer thoughts woven into the lightness 
and brightness of their spring days. 

Nineteenth . — A new illustration of the loving 
kindness of the Lord has been given me to-day ; 
proving how careful God would have his people be 
of the heart of the stranger. According to the 
customs of war among all ancient nations, the 
female captive became the slave of the conqueror. 
Moses taught that when a beautiful woman so 
touched the heart of the victor that he wished to 
make her his wife, the poor stranger should have 
a month to herself (in his home, although not his 
wife), to mourn for her kindred ; in that month 
the strange conqueror, with his strange ways and 
strange speech would become familiar to her, and 
if he showed her kindness, she might learn to love 
him. The month would be her time of probation, 
so that, if his aifection should cool toward her, and 
he had no delight in her, he might sell her for 
money before the trying ordeal of marriage. 
Afterward, if he let her go, he was forbidden to 
sell her for money, as she was his wife and not his 
slave. Isn’t it lovely to find such precious bits of 


434 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE, 


consideration for a captive in the old law? It 
seems as if hasty marriages were not approved, 
doesn’t it ? Love at first sight was not considered 
a warrant for the happiness of married life. You 
may say there was the marriage of Isaac. Yes, 
but she was given in answer to prayer ; she be- 
longed to the country and kindred of his father. 
I am a strong advocate of young people summer- 
ing and wintering together before they take each 
other for all the summers and winters to come. 
It takes a deed of love to pull together and to pull 
through. (Florence just came in, and I let her 
read what I have written for to-day. She goes 
away with a very serious face.) 

“ Twentieth . — You ask, have I a will of my own? 
Yes; God’s will is my own will. He works in us 
to will. Am I proud when God answers my 
prayers ? Yes ; I am proud of him. Your impa- 
tience when people (who should know better) 
make mistakes, is very natural, but do you not 
believe that God is as patient with those that 
make mistakes as with those who find fault with 
them ; that may be a mistake, also. 

“ Twenty-first — It does seem a little thing to be 
so large a thing as an ‘abomination unto the 
Lord,’ doesn’t it ? This matter of a woman wear- 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE. 


455 


ing a thing that pertaineth unto a man ? Male 
and female he made hhs children at the beginning, 
and he commands the distinction to be kept up, 
even in apparel. Is this an object lesson of how 
he wishes the differences to be felt and respected ? 
A lesson to teach us that he has given to the man 
his work, to the woman, her work ; to the woman, 
her hands, and heart, and intellect, to the man, 
his hands, and heart, and intellect. When the 
hands are clasped and the twain become one flesh, 
one in the work of the hands, the heart, the intel- 
lect, then indeed is the work a perfect work ; heirs 
together of the grace of life, their prayers are not 
hindered, their work — their growth is not hin- 
dered. 

Tiventy-second. — To-day Mrs. Spencer asked: 
‘Who is this Kizpah, that I hear quoted so fre- 
quently?* How each of us might have given a 
different answer ! As she turned to Giles he replied : 
‘She is a friend of my mother’s.* ‘She is my 
cousin,* said Florence, in a pretty, prompt, proud 
way. ‘Is she married?* was the next question. 
Afterward I fell to thinking of you as ‘ the unmar- 
ried woman * of whom Paul speaks. ‘The unmarried 
woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she 
may be holy both in body and spirit.* Careth for 


436 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE. 


tlie things of the Lord that she may be holy. 

‘ Sanctify them/ (make them holy) prayed Christ, 

‘ through thy truth ; thy word is truth/ When 
that prayer is answered for us, we shall be made 
holy through the word of God. The will of God is 
our sanctification : the will of God is that we should 
be made holy through his word. Now you know 
what the will of God is for y^ou. Think of the 
answer of that prayer coming to us hundreds of 
years after he prayed for us. We know he was 
praying for us, for he said: ‘Neither pray I for 
these alone, but for them also which shall believe 
on me through their word.’ And have you and I 
not believed through what John himself has writ- 
ten? If you believe, if any woman believes that 
she may be more ‘ holy ’ to remain unmarried, she 
sins in marrying. Do I believe that you may be 
more holy unmarried? Surely, surely, if you 
marry a man who is not a Christian, a man who 
hinders your growth. If you marry a man who is 
a help to you, whom in pleasing, you may also 
please your Master and his, are you more holy 
unmarried ? 

“ Christ sent his disciples forth two by two; do 
you not believe that he loves to send forth the two 
made one ? Two for counsel, two for prayer, two 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE, 


437 


for his work. Florence asks if I am writing to 
yon, and I bid her read what I have written. 
Again she goes away with a very serious face. 
Now she comes and asks if she may copy it. 

‘‘ Twenty third , — There are two women whom 
we are bidden to remember; Lot’s wife, and ‘what 
the Lord said unto Miriam.’ Lot’s wife gave a look 
toward forbidden things. And Miriam spoke 
against Moses, because of his wife, her sister-in-law. 
‘ Hath not the Lord spoken also by us ? she asked. 
And the Lord heard What a thing to be jealous 
about ! Had Miriam been glad and humble and 
holy, sanctified by the word God had spoken 
through her, she could not, (it would not have 
been in her,) have spoken against Moses, for the 
change made in the govei:nment by the adoption 
of seventy rulers as his helpers. Jethro, the father 
of the wife of Moses, had suggested to Moses the 
idea of having help in his arduous work. And 
that is the woman of it, 0 Miriam, to throw it up 
to Zipporah ! But as Moses assuredly did nothing 
without seeking the counsel of God, was not 
Miriam speaking against him in speaking against 
Moses and his wife ? The Lord heard it. And he 
came down and called Miriam. (Aaron is con- 
cerned in this also, but we arc thinking about 


438 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


the woman whom we are told to ‘ remember/) 
And behold Miriam became leprous, white as 
snow. Poor Miriam, the leper; God has spoken 
through your lips, and you are not sanctified 
by his word ; you are a leper as white as 
snow. 

“ Twenty-fourth — ‘ Those things which are 
revealed belong unto us.’ We own them, they are 
our inheritance. If you would know how rich 
you are, dig deep in the mine of Truth. (‘ Thy 
word is truth.’) Do not say you cannot under- 
stand. They are revealed things, not hidden ; 
the Holy Spirit will take them (the things of 
Christ) and show them unto you. And not only 
belong unto us, but unto our children. But there 
is a kinship more enduring than the kinship of the 
fiesh. Christ in his human nature had no brothers 
and sisters, as the children of Mary and Joseph 
were brothers and sisters to each other. And he 
said: ‘the same is my sister, and mother.’ It 
isn’t such a very sad thing, after all, for you never 
to know father and mother, brother and sister, as 
other girls do. God has a way, in this life, of 
making up our losses to us. 

“ Twenty ffth — I am so sure that your life will 
be fruitful ; God will make thee plenteous in every 


THOUGHTS FOR JUNE, 


439 


work of thine hand, is one of the blessings promised 
to obedience. 

“ Tioenty-sixth, — One reason that God bids us 
put our desires into words, is that we may know 
what we are asking for ; that we may understand 
ourselves. It requires a clear understanding of 
ourselves, to put ourselves into plain English. 

“ Twenty-seventh, — ^The whole body may be cast 
into hell for what the hand does. Christ said so. 

Tiventy-eiglith, — Said Blossom, just now: ‘Sup- 
pose you could have but ten minutes to pray for a 
thing, how would you pray ? ' 1 think I should 

spend nine and a half in asking for the faith that 
accepts God^s will. 

“ Twenty-ninth, — How do you know that you 
abide in him ? He has given us two proofs : they 
that abide in him and in whom his words abide, 
do two things. Bear much fruit. And whatsoever 
they willy they ask and receive. Any barrenness in 
these two things arises from barrenness of his 
abiding in us, and our abiding in him. They are 
the two tests. 

Thirtieth, — Giles just brought me a cutting 
from a paper ; from it I copy : ‘ Promptness of 

obedience to any call recogniz,ed as from God, so 
far from being exceptional and awakening surprise 


440 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


is habitual among Moravians.’ When William 
Chalmers Burns was appointed missionary to 
China, and was asked when he could be ready to 
start, he replied, ‘To-morrow.’” 

Eizpah closed the little book and pressed it 
again and again to her lips. 

Each day she would read the “ Thought ” for 
the day ; beside the inspiration heavenward there 
would be the communion with her congenial 
spirit, Mrs. Olmstead ; how glad she was that her- 
self and this friend were sent forth “two;” she 
could not feel alone as long as Mrs. Olmstead 
were in the world ; the Atlantic tossing between 
would be no hindrance ; it was the sea that would 
bring her letters. 

Erma was such a little thing, Mrs. Morehouse so 
far off. Miss Morehouse had no spiritual sympathy 
with her, how alone she would be when Griffin 
went away, to-morrow. 

That night she kept her arms about her small 
bed-fellow all night. 


XL. 


TIRED OF COUKTraa,’’ 

“ Rizpah, I am going. 

Eizpah and Erma were in the nursery ; Erma sat 
on a hassock at Eizpah’s feet, counting the fifteen 
words of her spelling lesson ; Eizpah was at work 
upon a white dress for her little girl ; in reply to 
the abrupt entrance and abrupt words, she lifted 
her head. 

“ Erma, darling, run down to the drawing-room 
awhile ; you may stand at the window and count 
how many people pass before 1 call you.” 

Instantly the book was dropped. 

There were too many for me to count yesterday, 
because you did not call soon.” 

“But I taught you to count last night; I wish 
to see how well you remember.” 

The child skipped away, and tall Griffin slipped 
down upon her hassock at Eizpah’s feet. 

“ Are you glad I am going ? ” 


( 441 ) 


442 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ I am glad of everything that is good for you.’’ 

“ And you are sure it is good for me ? 

“Very sure.” 

“ Which?” 

“All of it.” 

“The business college and Colorado.” 

“ Especially the business college.” 

“ My latent energy 'will become strikingly devel- 
oped; Pater 'will implore me to become partner in 
his big concern, and set up a rival establishment 
out West. But whatever else I do I sliall have a 
farm, be sure of that, and you and Erma shall come 
and see my wheat field.” 

She pushed her needle in and out, then tossed 
the white mass aside. 

“ It has been good for me to know you, Griffin.” 

“I am glad you can say that; I lay awake last 
night, worrying over how I have worried you; I 
have selfishly taken all and given you nothing but 
vexations; but I am not the same fellow you took 
in hand a year ago in Florence.” 

“Did I take you in hand? I had no thought 
of it.” 

“It was at my transition period; Giles had done 
for me what a man could — and I was drifting 
along, fool that 1 was, losing what little ambition 


“ TIRED OF counting: 


443 


I had, from him that had not was being taken that 
he had — I was losing my spirituality — the Chevils 
were a refining influence, but you were that, and 
something infinitely deeper ; you touched my spirit- 
ual nature, or, God touched it through your words 
and your influences. The girls put me on my met- 
tle to become a man; you helped me to see what 
a Christian manhood was like; Eizpah, how did 
you know ? ” he asked, regarding her with a rev- 
erent curiosity. 

“ The life of the Man, Christ Jesus, has long been 
a study to me; how could I but have the highest 
ideal of manhood ? ” 

“ Do you remember our talks about manliness ? ” 

“ I think I remember everything we ever talked 
about. 

“ It was a marvel to me that you would talk to 
me.’^ 

“You did not know how lonely I was, so strange 
among them all, and how something in you was 
like home.’’ 

“ They were kind to you ? ” 

“0 yes, indeed; but they were so different — 
I was so old-fashioned, so ignorant, and so sad 
then; you were like the sunshine that used 
to shine in Aunt Kizpah’s room; I used to be 


444 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


afraid I was taking you from them, but they had 
so much beside.” 

“ I wasn’t much to them, only an accommoda- 
tion.” 

“ They will miss you.” 

Blossom will, yes, and I think the others. 
How things have turned out. ‘There’s a divinity 
that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we 
will ;’ and I’ve hewed mine pretty roughly. Giles 
will go to Colorado with me ; he’s eager to go into 
big farming, too; his own farm is sold — he under- 
stands that business, and he can work away at his 
books between times. I’ve learned Giles this last 
year better than I ever knew him before.” 

Kizpah could not ask the question that was 
forming itself on her lips. 

“ He’s cool, he’s almost cold; his temperature 
never rises over blood heat, except in something 
that intimately concerns himself Self-interest is 
his governing motive. I love the old fellow, but 
I haven’t that thorough respect I had for him before 
we had this year together. He cares more for 
Giles Olmstead than for any other human being. 
He lives for his own sake. I told him so, and we 
nearly had a split. He told me some plain truths 
about myself that I didn’t relish at the time, but 


“ TIRED OF counting:^ 


445 


they are working away in me. It^s an unpardon- 
able thing to say about my friend, and I ought to 
bite my tongue in two for speaking it; but Pm 
mighty glad you have not married him — yours is 
the last nature to be in bondage to his; it would 
become a bondage, for he is as self-seeking as you 
are self-forgetting. His mother loves him, and he 
admires her, but her life is freer apart from him ; 
he clogs her with his selfishness ; it is the very re- 
finement of selfishness, and one has to live with 
him to see through it. I told him that, and he 
said that I lacked a proper self-respect and self- 
regard ; but he loves me for all that, and I am as 
mean as a thief for saying this to you; and I would 
not if you cared at all for him ; but it is an escape 
for you, and I can^t help telling you so.’^ 

“You have not told me anything new,’’ she 
answered, quietly. “ I felt this without understand- 
ing it ; I think it was the something that was 
always coming between us, even so long ago as 
when I was his pupil ; he was never large toward 
any one he spoke of ; he could never see any one, 
not even a character in a book, as it was in itself, 
but always as it affected him ! Oh, the quarrels 
we had over people in books ! I suppose I do not 
see clearly ; I never saw as he saw. I looked at 


446 


RIZPAH'>S HERITAGE, 


them from their own standpoint and judged them 
from what they desired and aimed to be — and he 
was always seeing and judging in some other way. 
It comes natural to me to put myself in the place 
of another, and he was always putting them in his 
place and jildging them from the standpoint of his 
education and ‘ enviroijment,’ as he would call it.” 

“Oh, we have continual quarrels of that kind. 
I tell him he isn’t fair, and he tells me I am 
narrow-minded. I’m ashamed of myself for say- 
ing this about him ; I’ll confess it to him. I’ll tell 
him we talked him over and I said to you what I 
have said to himself, and then if he cuts loose from 
me it will be my own fault. I wonder that he has 
borne with me so long. And you, too.” 

“ I do not see the dark side of you,” she said, 
smiling. 

“You keep it down, it doesn’t come out with 
you. My mother, poor mother, sees enough of it ! 
I wish I could show it to you ; I wish you could 
see me as I see myself I hate myself this minute 
for speaking so about old Giles.” 

“ It has not made any difference to me, do not 
think that,” she said, coloring deeply. “ I told you 
I felt that something was keeping us apart.” 

“ But I feel as cheap as dirt. I don’t know how 


TIRED OF counting: 


447 


1 can make it right with him. I feel as though I 
were guilty of treason.” 

“If you confess it, tell him that it did him no 
harm in my eyes.” 

“ Do you like him just as well as you did be- 
fore ? ” asked Griffin, eagerly. 

A hesitating “ no,” came, after a moment. 

“ From something his mother said, and from 
what you have said, I am the more confirmed in 
my estimate of his character.” 

“ I shall never forgive myself,” said Griffin, re - 
morseful ly. 

“Would you forgive yourself if you had permit- 
ted me to marry him, knowing him as you do, if 
you thought that I was deceived in him ?” 

“ If you loved him well enough to marry him, 
you could stand it.” 

“And that is where I failed.” 

“ Nothing is gained by my speaking, excepting 
proving to myself that I am a traitor and an 
ingrate.” 

“ I am as bad then, for I said the same thing.” 

“ But you are not his blood-brother ! ” said Grif- 
fin, gloomily. “I shall not rest until I have 
confessed and painted myself in the blackest 
colors.” 


448 


RIZPAirS HERITAGE. 


“ Isn’t it as bad to be unfair to yourself as to 
any one else ? ” 

“ I am too fair to myself” 

Allow me to write to him. I will tell him what 
you said rather than you should ; he could hardly 
forgive you from your own account.” 

“ I’ve got myself into a fix anyway ; he does 
not forgive easily ; if he thought I had influ- 
enced you he would cut loose from me without a 
pang.” 

“ Your influence has not a feather’s weight; my 
decision was made at Montreux. It was made be- 
fore Mrs. Olmstead spoke to me of his undemon- 
strative nature; in other words, his selfishness. I 
wish we had not spoken of him,” cried Rizpah, im- 
petuously. 

“ So do I. It mil surely end in a quarrel.” 

“As long as you have not influenced me, will it 
not be 'wiser, for his sake, not to speak of it ? ” 

“ And I shall go around and feel mean.” 

“ How much less mean will you feel after you 
have told him ? ” 

“ I would like to feel forgiven. But he will not 
forgive me. There, you see how I bother and per- 
plex and worry you this very last hour I am with 
you. Write the note and I will use it if I have 


TIRED OF COUNTINGS 


449 


occasion to prove to him that I have not injured 
him in yonr eyes.” 

“No more — not as much as his mother did. 
She said it for my sake.” 

“ I said it out of my ngly heart.” 

“ Griffin, will yon tell me something ? Pardon 
me, if I have not the right to ask — ” 

“You have as much right as any living being.” 

“ Do you expect to marry Blossom ? ” 

His eyes fired, then melted; Blossom would 
have been glad to see the look; Blossom loved 
him; he would try to make her happy all his 
life. 

“ If the child will take up with me,” he said, shy- 
ly. “ I told her I would not ask her till I was more 
worthy of her.” 

“ When was that ? 

“ The day they brought us on our way. And 
she was saucy and tearful and defiant, and asham- 
ed of herself, and said she hadn’t behaved ! And 
I promised to speak to Pater when I had proved 
that I can behave myself ! But she told mamma, 
and it’s all out.” 

His mothePs voice in the hall called: “ Griffin ! 
Griffin ! ” 

“ I am more glad than I can say,” said Eizpah. 

29 


450 


RIZFAWS HERITAGE: 


“ So am I,” he said, springing up with a laugh. 
“ Take good care of my mother.” 

A small voice at the door pleaded : “ I’m so tired 
of counting; and IVe forgotten how many.” 

“ If s all nonsense about that note ; don’t write 
it. What shall I say to Blossom for you ?^’ 

“ Tell her she knows how glad I am.” 

For two or three days after he went away, she 
could not be glad about anything. 


XLI. 

EXTEACTS FEOM MES. OLMSTEAD’S LETTEES. 

Fifteenth — We have had another day at Gali- 
lio’s Tower. I was homesick for you. Griffin said: 
‘Mother and Eizpah were here the other time/ 
He and Florence came back from a walk, hand-in- 
hand. If possible, that girl grows sweeter by the 
day. She said to me yesterday : ‘ I don’t want to 
make anything harder for Griffin; I want right 
things to be easier and pleasanter because of me. 
He has given her a copy of Macduff’s Morning and 
Night Watches, and she told me they read the 
selections together every morning and every even- 
ing. Emily and Giles are becoming great friends ; 
they read a great deal together; it is good for 
her, and better for him. She has an independent 
way that is good for his — what ? She is one of 
the girls that will rise up and assert herself (when 
herself is in the right,) she is quick at repartee, 

and has a way of showing him a weakness in him- 

( 451 ) 


452 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


self that hurts and yet does not anger him. She is 
the kind of a girl to marry a strong-willed, self- 
willed man; she will not be crushed; and in her 
determined hands he will become moulded after 
another fashion — if he loves her well enough. I 
am not wishing that Emily may find such a one, 
but I do wish that such a one may find her. Men 
need wives as well as mothers. Florence seemed 
flushed and weary on the way home, and Griffin 
brought word to-night that her mother was anxious 
about her. 

“ Seventeenth , — I called this morning at the 
Lung’ Arno, and found Mrs. Chevll had sent for 
the physician ; she had been up all night with 
Florence. Voices are hushed in the beautiful 
rooms, and everybody has forgotten to throw out 
the wilted flowers. 

“ Nineteenth , — Florence has symptoms of typhoid. 
Pater cannot speak without a breaking of the 
voice. The girls huddle together and put their 
arms about each other, looking pale and fright- 
ened. Griffin looks wilted. 

“ Twenty-fourth , — As Griffin writes to you every 
day, I will only jot down a word or two. Two 
days ago Mrs. Chevil sent for me ; the English 
nurse, her mother and I are constantly near her ; 


EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 


453 


Mrs. Chevil sleeps if I am with the nurse. The 
fever runs very high. Her beautiful hair has 
been taken off ; her face looks like a baby’s face 
on the pillow. She asks for each of them every 
day. The doctor has sent them all away. Griffin 
hovers about and comes in every time he has per- 
mission. 

“ Thirtieth . — She has had a chill to-day, and 
high fever followed. She is exceedingly weak ; 
we care for her as for an infant. I spoke of you 
to-day, and she smiled and said: ‘Tell her she 
was very good to me.’ 

“ July Seventh . — Your letters are a comfort. I 
read portions to the girls and Griffin. I told 
Blossom how Erma loves you and how she cried 
that night you stayed with Miss Morehouse in the 
storm. She smiled, but did not speak. Her fever 
ran tw^enty-one days and is now beginning to 
break. You cannot think how weak she is. 
Sometimes we bend over and watch for her breath. 
Griffin’s face gives us the heartache. He says he 
cannot give her up. The doctors give very little 
hope. Pater walks his room night and day. Bud 
is worn out with weeping. The girls are with us. 
Pater would have them. The doctor says she will 
probably sleep and pass easily away. 


454 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ Tenth — Griffin kneels at the bedside with his 
head on her pillow ; it is many hours since she 
spoke to him. Her last words were like a sigh: 
‘ Darling mamma.’ She sleeps easily. Grifiinsays 
he could bear it if only she could speak to him 
once more. They are all in the room ; I felt like 
an intruder and stole away to speak to you. Yes- 
terday her mother said : ‘ I am glad of what she 
learned with you.’ She reads — and has since the 
first night she read to Blossom, her Morning and 
Night Watches every day. The marked places are 
very precious to us all. 

“ Midnight , — Our darling has gone ! Her mother 
sleeps from exhaustion. GriflSn has gone away 
by himself ; even Giles dares not follow him. I 
cannot sleep. I long for you. I told Griffin I 
would send this as soon as possible. He has pre- 
pared you for it. There was so little for him to do 
for her. He has been with me for two hours, 
weeping and talking of her, repeating many of the 
bright and sweet things she said in the first days 
of her illness. To him she has been a perfect 
blessing. Their last days together were as sweet 
as days lived on earth could be. If she had 
known that she was to leave him she could not 
have been different ; she said : ‘ I cannot do any- 


EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS, 


455 


thing for you but love you, for you know I am not 
wise ; I am just getting over a little my vain and 
silly ways ; I am so ashamed of how I used to feel 
and do ; I don’t see how you can love me at all.’ 

FifteeMh , — I am back again at the Hotel Paoli; 
we go every day to the Lung’ Arno. Yesterday 
Griffin took me to her grave. He must talk about 
her ; it seems to keep his heart from bursting. 
He says she was so much to him for so many rea- 
sons. The girls still huddle together, but begin 
to talk and read. Giles read Italian to Emily to- 
day. 

Eighteenth , — I had begun to write a Calendar 
for her. When I showed it to Griffin, he asked 
me to finish it for him. She had painted the cover 
for herself, and chosen the motto: ‘Blessed are 
the pure in heart, for they shall see God.^ We had 
many talks together after you left ; she was very 
apt to learn. She said her last thought at night 
was a prayer, and her first thought in the morn- 
ing. Pater said to-day : ‘ She was such a beauti- 
ful blossom.’ 

“ Twentieth , — We are all going home. There is 
no longer any pleasure for the Chevils in Florence. 
Griffin is anxious to be doing something. He says 
he would rather see you and his mother than go 


456 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


home with us, but that it would only weaken him, 
and he needs all his physical force. Our vacation 
is over; we all go home to work. This winter I 
shall want you and Giles and Griffin. I am so 
thankful, so thankful that Griffin told her he loved 
her, that he did not tarry longer with his mother, 
that she had those last days with him and with 
them all. Of all the girls I know, and have ever 
known, her life had the fewest clouds. She is 
taken away from sorrow and disappointment to 
come. Of course she had her girlish trials and dis- 
appointments; but she never had a real sorrow. 
To Griffin she has been all blessing. Her memory 
will be most sweet to him. He has become wonder- 
fully gentle. He said last night as we talked in 
the moonlight : ‘ I ask the Lord to fill what she has 
left empty in me with himself.’ His love for her 
was protecting and watchful; he took her into his 
heart as he would take an apple blossom into his 
hands, with a tender admiration and love for her 
beauty and fragrance. It was all poetry to him ; 
in the wear and tear of life, it might have become 
prose. He is a born poet, although he will never 
write a line. 

“ It is bringing Giles out wonderfully ; he lays his 
hand on Griffin’s shoulder in a way altogether new 


EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 457 ^ 

to him ; Griffin is an education to him. But, oh, 
how we all educate each other! 

“ August Tenth . — Miss Sharpe and I have had 
several conferences. Everything in our dominion 
has flourished and is flourishing. School larger 
than ever last year. I must busy myself now in 
making changes ; painting, papering, etc., must 
be attended to. The Chevils are all to be sent to 
me. Blossom spoke to her mother about it while 
she was ill. They are to take a house in our little 
city on the first of September, as Pater and her- 
self cannot be away from the girls ; he can take 
the train to New York every morning if he 
chooses. We are but thirty miles distant. How 
I long for you and Erma. 

November Seventeenth . — The Chevils with me, 
Giles and Griffin in Colorado, you in England. A 
year ago to-day we were at Montreux. The girls 
are studying faithfully ; Emily promises to take 
the lead in everything. Griffin writes to each of 
them as last winter. 1 am glad you write to him. 
You are a better help to him than any of us. My 
jubilee year was over some time ago. How many 
letters and ‘Calendars ’ I did write! Well, I never 
had such a year. How the letters poured in upon 
me, and each Calendar (poor little efibrt) had its 


458 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


own especial way of helping. I almost wish to 
live until another jubilee year. And I shall ; and 
it will be more of a jubilee There than here. We 
are all waiting outside tho gates. Since Blossom 
entered in, the gates seem wide open and very 
near. Pater is a silent man since he lost his old- 
est daughter ; he attends service twice a day (he 
never used to go to church at all) and keeps her 
Morning and Night Watches on his study table. 

“ December Fourth , — I haven’t told you anything 
about Bud, of late ; it is not because she is not 
budding (which, please pardon, in memory of 
Griffin). I have been afraid the girls would spoil 
her ; she is the beauty of the school, and admira- 
tion meets her in every glance. Her mother and 
I have had several talks about this part of her ; 
in the last one we concluded that her beauty (like 
other gifts) is a trust from God ; he has entrusted 
her with it, and he can give her faithfulness to 
hold it for him. ‘ If some one is drawn to you and 
does not receive good from you, your beauty has 
failed, so far as that one person is concerned,' I 
said to her yesterday, when she came to me saying 
that Lula Greyson said she was proud, and that 
she did not think she was pretty any longer. 

‘ What shall I do ? ’ she asked. ‘ Help Lula in 


EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. 


459 


some way. Watch and pray for an opportunity.’ 
To-day she told me that Lula was going home to 
stay all night with her. She looked serious, (with 
a look like Blossom) when I told her that a woman 
in her personal attraction held a stewardship as a 
man held a stewardship in his money ; and she 
must not give a tenth, but all of it, to the Giver. 
Every Friday afternoon I talk to the girls for half 
an hour upon some subject chosen by them ; slips 
of paper indicating subjects are laid upon my 
desk. For this week I have selected: ‘Personal 
Beauty.’ I think the penmanship is Bud Chevil’s. 
By the way, she is Bud to us only, and Grace to 
the school-girls. 

‘^January Twenty-seventh — Bee is a study to me. 
I am glad she loves to write to you; she says your 
letters grow more interesting every month, and 
she is ‘ so glad ’ when her turn comes. Her sisters 
love you for your own sake as well as Blossom’s. 
The darling child left a message about you, which 
I have saved all this time for you: ‘Be strong, like 
Eizpah.’ Bee studies Political Economy and reads 
all Miss Martineau’s Political Economy series, and 
wishes she could write one herself At night her 
father talks over .with her, all the news of the day. 
Her essay this week was upon Civil Service, No one 


460 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


in my Thursday afternoon Bible class is more in- 
terested than she is ; her father has given her a set 
of Lange’s Commentaries. When she wished she 
were a boy the other night, I told her about 
the woman wearing the garment of the man 
being an ‘abomination’ to the Lord, and she imme- 
diately went to Lange for further imformation. 
Her next essay will be on the Relaticm of the Sexes 
to the Work of the Worlds or some kindred topic, I 
do not doubt. The girls look forward to the read- 
ing of Miss Bee Chevil’s essays. Her father has 
promised to take her West next summer. 

March Twenty-fourth , — You asked me to tell 
you ‘all about Budget.’ All about Budget would 
would require a volume. Her six boy cousins 
still visit her, and write to her. One is at West 
Point, and the others are about choosing their 
work in life. She showed me a letter from Giles one 
day last week ; he is digging away at farming and 
literature ; she says he reminds her of Horace Gree- 
ley, and asked me if I thought it were true, (as some- 
body says) that the man who governs nations, must 
be without a heart. It required some effort not to 
smile when I replied. Evidently Giles Olmstead is 
a hero in her school-girl eyes. He never mentions 
you, and I never mention you. I suppose he hears 


jSXTjRACTS from letters. 


461 


all about you and your charge, through your 
faithful correspondent, GriflSn. Budget is as deep 
in mathematics as she used to be in Latin ; Geom- 
etry is her delight ; she studies it with the fascina- 
tion that Bee reads history. She says she would 
like to take Miss Sharpe’s position : I would rather 
have her, young as she is, than Miss Sharpe. (Miss 
Sharpe is engaged, so I am hoping for Emily.) 
She has the least ‘ sentiment ’ about young men, 
of any girl I know ; I attribute it to her compan- 
ionship with her boy cousins ; I wish all my girls 
had six bright boy cousins. Giles is another boy 
cousin. (I am not sure that she is only a girl 
cousin to him.) I want Emily and Bee, for edu- 
cators of girls ; it is their talent; I do not think 
their money or social position will hinder; I do 
not think any one of the six boy cousins will hin- 
der. I am not sure that Giles will be allowed to 
hinder; Pater admires my Giles, but mamma 
stands aloof. Next time I will answer your Six 
Questions about Erma. Of course I must have her 
in my school, and you must make your home with 
the Chevil’s, meanwhile. I do not know any girl 
whose life I am more satisfied with than yours. 
You have lacked many things ; one is, a girl’s life 
among girls. I had that in full. Do not keep 


462 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


Erma from it; I do not know anything to take its 
place; nothing but the plain will of God in the 
matter, would allow me to keep a girl by herself 
as you were kept ; girls flock together as naturally 
as birds. You remind me of a clock I read about 
yesterday; it was in a window with its face turned 
outward; it had a luminous dial, which could be 
read in a dark room. Its substance had a power 
of absorbing light, during the hours of sunlight 
and these sunshiny hours fltted it for night ser- 


XLII. 


YOUES — TEIJE.” 

Eizpah laughed over the idea of comparing her- 
self and her life to a luminous dial, but it was the 
happiest laugh Erma had ever heard from her lips; 
the letter came in one of Ermas days of conva- 
lescence ; the child had sprained her ankle, and 
then before she could step had broken out with 
scarlet fever ; for a month Eizpah’s night service 
had been constant, and it was three months before 
the ohild regained her usual strength. 

Her great pleasure during these days was letters 
from over the sea ; Mrs. Olmstead and Griffin 
wrote every week ; Giles occasionally, the Chevils 
as often as the mood seized them. 

“ I wonder if you intend to give all your life to 
children and old women ! ” exclaimed Mrs. More- 
house, watching her one day, as she sat correcting 
the examples on Erma’s neat slate. 

“ One at a time,” replied Eizpah, drawing a line 
through an incorrect figure. 


( 463 ) 


464 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


“ What with Erma’s lessons and your own, you 
do not have any life! It’s all school-room! I 
should think you would die of the blues and the 
fidgets. And your life might be so difierent ; that 
is what I cannot understand about it.” 

“ That is what Griffin told me in his letter this 
morning.” 

“ Does he understand it ? ” 

“ He thinks he understands me.” 

“That’s more than I do, then. With the 
Chevils, think what your life might be I Those 
girls will have society as soon as they are through 
school, and think what opportunities you might 
have ! ” 

“Opportunities for what?” asked Eizpah, 
changing a figure. 

“ For what every girl expe33ts — to be settled in 
life, for one thing.” 

“ I feel very much settled now,” returned Eiz- 
pah, smiling. 

“You look so; too, much so,” said Mrs. More- 
house, discontentedly, “you do not go out with 
me once a week.” 

“ To speak frankly, I do not enjoy everybody I 
meet. I go to several places for your sake, because 
you and Mr. Morehouse are so kind as to wish to 


« YOURS— true: 


465 


give me pleasure; my real life is in Erma and my 
own studies.” 

“ That isn’t a girl’s life.” 

“ I am hardly a girl now ; I am not young like 
the Chevils ; I am settled down — to my work.” 

“ But I don’t like it ; I want you to be a girl.” 

Eizpah wrote a few words upon the slate, and 
then laid it upon her lap, keeping the pencil in 
her fingers ; her serious eyes were almost sad. 

“ I began life as a woman ; my girlhood ended 
that day that Aunt Eizpah was taken so ill ; I do 
not know that I would choose such a life for Erma; 
but I did not choose it ; Aunt Eizpah did not 
choose it ; it was given to us. It has made me what 
I am, a woman without any girlhood. I am more 
happy than you know; when I have Erma at 
night, and we have had a good day together, I 
am fully satisfied ; I do not know of anything I 
would like as well. I wish I were more ‘jolly,’ as 
Griffin would call it ; I would like to do more the 
things that please you.” 

“You can, easily enough.” 

“ Not without neglecting Erma.” 

“ She can have a governess.’’ 

Then she would have no need of me.” 

‘ And I should lose you.” 

30 


406 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


“ Are you ready for that ? ” 

“ You know better. I only want you to be a 
little diJBferent. I want you to care for society. 
What IS a woman unless she is fitted to shine in 
society ? 

“I should never shine,” said Eizpah, thinking of 
the luminous dial. 

“The Chevils will.” 

“ I am glad for them ; I am glad of the many 
people who will know them.” 

“Now if you were poor, I could understand it. 
But the choosing it is beyond my comprehension.” 

“ Mrs. Morehouse,” — she dropped her pencil on 
the slate, and fixed her earnest eyes upon her com- 
panion's face, “ did you ever think, if somebody 
loved you, you would not want anything else ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“No one loves me as Erma does, no one needs 
me as Erma does.” 

“ Some one else might.” 

“ Mrs. Olmstead does not need me, the girls do 
not.” 

“ You might find a home of your own.” 

The swift flush revealed nothing but momentary 
confusion, to the kind and keen eyes regarding 
her; with a triumphant little laugh, Mrs. More- 


“ YOURS— true:^ 


467 


house nodded at her, and picked up her work 
again. 

“You are not so much of a recluse, as you 
would have people believe ; Pm glad there’s a 
woman’s heart down at the bottom of your still- 
ness; if you miss such things it will be your own 
fault for keeping yourself shut up so/’ 

With half a sigh, and half a smile, Rizpah laid 
aside the slate, and opened the French book she 
was reading ; it was very alluring over the sea, 
but how could she go, and yet keep Erma? The 
child was the light of Uncle Jack’s eyes. 

“ Will you go to Mrs. Henshaw’s, to-night ? ” 

“ Yes,” was the reply, not lifting her eyes from 
her book. 

“ And wear your garnet silk.” 

“ Oh, yes.” 

“ And have a good time ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I always find some to listen to at her 
gatherings.” 

“ Will you accept every invitation you have for 
the next six months, to please Jack and me ? ” 

“ 1 would do more than that to please you, dear 
Mrs. Morehouse,” said Rizpah, in a errateful voice. 

“ And dress as I wish you to?” 

“ Yes; your taste suits me — for myself.^’ 


468 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


“ Now you are a darling/^ springing up to give 
her a gratified kiss, ‘‘you do roake an impression ; 
some people admire your quiet style, and a good 
many like to talk to you/’ 

That is the best part of it.” 

“ The talk ! Of course it is, I go to talk.” 

“I like to meet people who have a purpose; 
and so many have; the work of the world is 
going on in some very quiet places. One lady 
told me last night that she spent days in going 
in and out of houses, getting every woman over 
sixteen to sign some petition to the Queen ; the 
hardest of it was the saying the same thing over 
and over ; she was never so tired in her life, but 
it 'paid^'" 

“ That was Mr. Merriwether’s sister ! The lady 
with the bright face ! I wondered what you were 
listening about so long. He was waiting for you 
all the time. Eizpah, do you like him ? ” 

“Yes; he is entertaining and he is in earnest.” 

“ Earnest about what, pray ? ” 

“About living, about doing something.” 

“ You are crazy on doing. As if everybody were 
not in earnest about doing something.” 

“ But I like the something about which he is in 
earnest.” 


yours-true: 


469 


‘‘What particular form does his earnestness 
take?’’ 

“ He is an artist and a sculptor ; he told me about 
the picture on which he is at work.” 

“ He has a little girl.” 

“Younger than Erma; he showed me her photo- 
graph ; she is as beautiful as a fancy picture ; not a 
homely, chubby, red-haired ordinary child like 
Erma — ^but Erma is the kind I like ! He gave me 
the picture, and Erma says she hates it.” 

“ She will spoil it or tear it up.” 

“No, she will not.’^ 

“ You will see !” said Mrs. Morehouse, convinc- 
ingly. “You are too patient with her jealous 
freaks.^’ 

“ Am I ? I didn’t know one could be too patient ; 
I understand how she feels and I want to help her 
through it.” 

“You don’t help her by humoring her.” 

“ Keeping that picture on my bureau isn’t hu- 
moring her. Going out with you when she cries for 
me to stay at home isn’t humoring her.’’ 

“ Did she make you tell her that you loved her 
better than any one else in the world, this morn- 

“No; I told her that I do not.” 


470 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


And she kicked and screamed, didn’t she ?” 
“She has not attempted that for six months. 
Poor little thing, she went away by herself to cry ; 
she is crying in the nursery now. I do not know 
^how to help her ; it was best to tell her the truth, 
and yet it is breaking her heart; I told her that I 
love her dearly, dearly, dearly, but that doesn’t sat- 
isfy her loving little exacting heart.” 

“ She ought to be whipped,” said Mrs. More- 
house, with quick determination. 

Kizpah colored angrily; it was half a minute 
before she could speak gently. 

“ Does not every one wish to be loved best ? ” 

“ But she is only a child.” ’ 

“ A fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sister- 
less child ! Aunt Kizpah used to tell me that she 
loved me best.” 

“ Why didn’t you tell her so, then ? ” 

“I simply told her the truth. If I loved her 
best I would tell her so ; the truth must be spoken 
— it would not have hurt her if it were true I loved 
her best — and when it hurts she must know it just 
the same; God would have meant it so.” 

“ Does he mean for you to love some one else 
better ? ” questioned Mrs. Morehouse, lightly. 

She was rocking and knitting ; something about 


“ YOURS— true: 


471 


her, or her work, or attitude, reminded Kizpah of 
that day in the snow storm at Montreux ; that 
day her love for little, unknown Erma, was pure 
compassion ; she loved Blossom and Griffin better 
that day. 

It was not Blossom that she loved better to-day, 
nor Giles Olmstead, nor his mother, nor Griffin’s 
mother, even with all her kindliness toward her- 
self ; she knew that it was Griffin, himself, whose 
boyish dream she had been ; Griffin who loved her 
now with the devotion and unselfishness of a big 
brother ; Griffin, who loved Florence, his ideal of 
girlishness, as he had not loved her ; Griffin, who 
was now her steadfast friend, upon whose strength 
and manliness she leaned ; Griffin, who had 
signed himself, in that letter she had read three 
times this morning, “Yours, true.” 

He would ever be that, hers, and true. 

Could she reply to this light question : “ Yes ? ” 

“ I hope so — I would not like to love any love 
that he does not mean.” 

“You are mystical, and transcendental, and all 
those things,” was the vexed reply ; and then 
she added: “But there’s something beautiful in 
it.” 


“ There’s something true in it' 


472 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


“I hope you don't talk that way to people you 
meet.” 

“I do not know how I talk,” said Eizpah, indig- 
nantly ; “ if you are ashamed of me allow me to 
remain at home.” 

‘‘ I am not ashamed of you, I am proud of you ; 
your reserve and quietness give you quite a high- 
bred air. Somebody said you had an English 
air.” 

“ I have a right to it,” said the girl, with an 
unusual touch of pride, “ my mother’s father was 
an Englishman.” 

“ Do you ever — ” Mrs. Morehouse, in her curi- 
osity and eagerness, quite forgot her tact, “ expect 
to find — your — ^people ? ” 

“I have found them,” lifting her head and throw- 
ing it back. ‘‘I have found you^ and Mrs. 01m- 
stead, and Griffin, and Erma.” 

“ And your heritage, too — your Aunt Eizpah’s 
land and money,” said her questioner, not un- 
moved. 

i‘That is the poorest part of my heritage,” 
adding, with pride and tenderness? “ I am the 
richest girl in the whole world.” 


XLIIL 

EXTEACTS EEOM GEIEEIX’S LETTEES. 

June Fourteenth . — A summer trip in Alaska 
cannot discover a tithe of it ; it is a big place and 
a grand place ; Giles and I are having a glorious 
time ; he writes for a big newspaper, and I write 
for you and the Chevils. He describes ; I only 
tell about places and people. These Alaskan 
Indians build their huts of bark and logs, and 
sawed lumber ; they choose to build by the water 
courses, and there are plenty of them ; the shores 
of the bays are covered with yellow moss ; in the 
waters is the reflection of mountains, wooded and 
rocky. But you have seen mountains ; and I 
don’t know how to put anything on paper. Giles 
will send you his newspaper accounts. Of course 
you would rather hear about me than about those 
Indians. Wouldn’t you like the fun of hearing an 
Indian band play ‘Yankee Doodle’? What do 

you think of street lamps in Alaska, and side- 

( 473 ) 


474 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


walks, a public school, and a public hall ? There 
is a saw mill under the management of the Indi- 
ans, and a salmon cannery. In London you may 
buy some of the canned salmon. The Indians, 
themselves, have built a church that holds one 
thousand people ; we bought a lot of things in the 
stores, just for the fun of having Indians wait on 
us. I’ll save them up for you and Erma. I know 
you never heard of Metlakaltah before ; it is a 
British mission station, and as a subject of the 
British Queen, you may be as proud of it as you 
like. Aren’t you ashamed of being an American 
in Europe — never having been a tourist in Alaska? 
We spent a day or more in Sitka. When you 
come to see me I will not entertain you in a Sitka 
hut, for to enter that you must bend double (I 
did) to get in at the door ; a fire in the middle of 
the hut finds its stifling way out through the roof ; 
smoked fish hang everywhere ; if you stay long 
you’ll be smoked yourself. The fellows them- 
selves are neither yellow nor red ; hideous enough 
and dirty enough. On the floor, everything they 
possess seems to have taken possession. The 
sights and the smells sickened me ; I bent myself 
double and got out. Giles stayed to take notes. 

“Next we went to the mission school outside 


EXTRACTS FROM GRIFFIN^ S LETTERS. 475 

the town. That would have done your soul good. 
You would be glad your twenty-five cents was sent 
to Alaska. In the prayer meeting think of hear- 
ing an Indian woman pray. How I wished for 
Blossom (if I could wish for her). We went into 
the Greek church and looked around ; the last 
time I visited a church ( for the purpose of look- 
ing around) you and Blossom were with me. I 
am so robust that I shall soon settle down. 

July Fourteenth . — We are camping out here in 
Colorado, and it is glorious. Such air, and such 
sunrises, and such sunsets. Giles puts all the 
colors down in black and white, and tells me that 
I shirk as soon as I begin to write a letter. But I 
am not shirking in the matter of getting strength. 
I am learning to ride like a cow-boy. Think of 
me sleeping out in the air, on pine boughs, and 
waking in the morning feeling refreshed. We see 
lots of people. Giles and I have endless conversa- 
tions about the past. That winter in Switzerland 
was, a century ago. I shall never go home — if I 
know where ‘ home ’ is. Giles is as wild to stay 
as I am. In October we shall go into civilization. 
I am in search of a settlement that needs my 
money and me ; most of all me. When you come, 
(how soon will that be ? ) you shall have a two 


476 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


story house (three if you prefer) and a church 
with a steeple, and cushioned seats, and carpet in 
the aisles, and a bell, and an organ. Anything 
else ? Send the order ahead ! I am the kind that 
dies if he hasn’t a hope to live on ; I am hoping 
for lots of things. One is to do some kind of work 
that pays ; I have the physical strength for it 
(notwithstanding those croaking doctors). God 
gave me pluck and common sense when he put 
me into the world, and he is giving me his own 
strength every hour of the day. Blossom gave me 
her new Bible, and I read it for hours at a time. 
It takes on a new significance out among the 
clouds and rocks. 

“You know what she was to me; a bewitching 
reality, when you were a dream that I dared not 
dream. I had to have somebody love me; I 
can’t stand it as Giles can ; his stamina is not in 
me. Her frank and yet reserved love for me (so 
unworthy I was) came near breaking my heart; I 
could not help telling her I loved her, for I knew 
it would make her happy. I can say that now she 
is in Heaven; I do not wrong her, for no thought 
of marriage can enter in where she is. That is for 
poor mortals who need each other in this battle 
of life; I just looked up and said this last thing to 


EXTRACTS FROM GRIFFIN^ S LETTERS. 477 


Giles (he is cooking eggs and baking cakes, deli- 
cious too — and making coffee) and he lifts his head 
from the fire with an egg shell in one hand, and 
a huge iron spoon in the other, and answers: 
‘ Would any woman do better than this ? As the 
Suxsex laborer asked: ‘Why should I give a 
woman one half of my victuals for cooking the 
other half?’ I was awfully unjust to him that 
morning ! This wide life, or something else, is 
taking some of his stiffness out of him. He is 
very careful of me. He goes to work again, and 
lifts his head up to say: ‘ Do you remember that 
day at Galileo’s Tower ? ’ ‘1 remember more than 

one day there,’ I answer. The next thing he says 
is: ‘Wouldn’t the Chevil girls love to be here ? ’ 
‘x\nd Eizpah,’ I say. He works over the fire be- 
fore he speaks. It is the first time I have spoken 
your name to him for some time. ‘ I said once I 
would never give her up ; I mean it ; I told her so ; 
I have not given her up. I cannot understand how 
it is, but something has given her up — my will, or 
my affections (for she had a hold there, even if 
you will not believe it) for I am not waiting for 
her, as I believed I should wait until my waiting 
was a success. I despise myself for my weak will, 
1 am not the man I thought I was.’ He speaks in 


478 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


a voice quite unlike his quiet, self-assurance. ‘ Per. 
haps she is not the girl you thought she was,* I yen-’ 
ture, after watching his movements awhile. ‘ It 
takes a vast amount of love to hold on, when you 
meet with no response ; love will thrive on a small 
amount of provender, but it must have some. My 
pride and my will have been holding on; I do not 
think I have loved her since that last day at Mon- 
treux.* I think I was in a blaze ! To speak of hav- 
ing loved you ! I wanted to tell him he had never 
loved anybody but himself; but I swallowed some- 
thing and spoke : ‘Old fellow, you are right. That 
is the bottom fact ; how did you get at it ? * ‘ By 

a course of reasoning.* ‘ I should have taken a 
shorter cut than that, if I had been you.* ‘ You 
jump at things like a woman ; your mind is half a 
woman^s, at its best.* Not knowing whether to be 
pleased or offended, I write on in silence, and he 
whistles me to breakfast.** 

“ December Tioenty-first — We are settled at last 
in a home of our own. A good cook has the care / 
of our inward man, and our quarters are very com- 
fortable. Our plan of operations is going briskly 
forward. We are public-spirited citizens. Giles 
is already superintendent of a Sunday-school, and 
the missionary and I are full of a cliurch enter- 


EXTRACTS FROM GRIFFIN^ S LETTERS. 479 


prise. I don’t see why those British folks in Alas- 
ka should outdo us in enterprise, do you ? Our 
nearest neighbor is half a mile, but we have the 
mail twice a day, and you cannot say that is out 
of the world. Our missionary's wife is one of 
Mrs. Olmstead’s old girls, and she is clear grit ; she 
is the girl Mrs. 0. wrote those long letters to from 
Switzerland, that you used to read. She has been 
here but three months, came on her bridal tour ; 
half a dozen unmarried missionaries have left, but 
she will help her husband hold on and hold out. 
I wish I had somebody to help me hold on. I 
think she will help me, for she speaks of * Rizpah,’ 
as though she knew you. She gave me a letter to 
read (part of it) that Mrs. 0. wrote in that snow 
storm at Montreux. Had I been a girl I should 
have cried. Giles was moved. That was the day 
I teazed Blossom by wishing for Budget. This 
girl does not look strong, and the church shall 
have a parsonage as soon as it has a church, if I 
can stir things up a little. I told her about 
your church and parsonage, and Kinnet, and she 
exclaimed: ‘ I never heard of anything so beautiful 
in my life ! ’ I could not tell her all your story 
(your beautiful story), but l told her enough to fill 
her eyes with very happy tears. After that we all 


480 


RIZPAH^S heritage: 


sung home songs and hymns, till, if everybody 
wasn’t homesick, it was because they have more 
pluck than I have. She asked me about Blossom, 
and I talked and made her cry again. She says 
she can get Mrs. 01m stead out here ; did you 
know she had been to Kansas and to Minnesota, 
visiting her old girls, and two children have been 
named Maria Olmstead ? I tell Giles that Budget 
will make just such another enthusiastic and 
successful teacher. He says Pater will not allow 
it. Wouldn’t Bee love to come out here and live 
her ‘ air castle ’ ? I think I have inherited my 
mother’s talent of epistolation. (I coined that 
word.) Your letters are the joy of my life and the 
marrow of my bones. If I were a girl I would 
tell you that I read them more than once, but 
being a man with an incredibly large amount of 
intellect and an incredibly small amount of heart, 
I shun sentiment ; leaving that to you. How 
many times do you read my letters ? 

‘‘ New Years Day , — I have given my past an 
overhauling to-day, and do not find one thing in 
it worthy of bringing to the light. Why was 
such a good-for-naught suffered to breathe? For 
fun and laziness there was not my equal in both 
hemispheres. Where was I drifting? Do you 


EXTRACTS FROM GRIFFIN^S LETTERS, 481 


remember the night you told me the story of the 
old man (translated from some German, you said) 
thinking over his past and bewailing it, and wish- 
ing in an agony that his youth might come back, 
that he might live his life over again ? I held my 
breath while you were telling it. And then the 
agony overcame him and he awoke, and his youth 
was back. Not a day has passed since that the relief 
has not weighed me down ; my thankfulness that 
I still have my youth has been too great to speak. 

“ When I told Giles he said : ‘ Have you never 
heard that before? That is old.’ Giles, old fel- 
low, has a past worth an honorable record; he does 
not allow that he has ever done anything to be 
ashamed of ; and I cannot see that he ever has. 
He has kept me from many a folly. Do you care 
for all this ? I am lost unless I write a word to 
you every day. The plague of it is that it has to 
cross a continent and an ocean before it gets to 
you; if it is stale, may the salt air revive it. Our 
missionary preached to the girls last Sunday; I 
would transcribe it for you, but he says he can’t 
give it to me in good shape. The subject was: 
The choice of Euth. Do you know all her grand 
fortune grew out of her lovingness ? She chose her 

mother-in-law, her country, her people, and her 
31 


482 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


God out of pure, clear, sheer lovingness. She got 
that home in Bethlehem with that grand old Boaz ; 
and she was the mother of Obed, and he was the 
father of Jesse, and he was the father of David! 
The great-grandmother of King David! And as 
if glory enough didn’t come out of that lovingness, 
she was one of the ancestors of David’s Son, the 
Saviour of the world. Suppose she had not loved 
Naomi and her people and her God, and had stay- 
ed behind in Moab ! After all, you women cannot 
do much better than love, and choose, and serve. 
I wished for all the girls I knew to hear it. I am 
a gregarious animal. After service 1 had to thank 
the speaker in your name; his wife said: ‘He 
meant all that for me ; I was blue one day, and he 
said he would preach a sermon to me.’ I told her 
it was for Eizpah. I was wise enough (or silly 
enough) to read to her your long letter about your 
trip to London. But if 1 keep on, I shall spin out 
like a woman ; I believe I don’t know where 
to _stop, when I think that you will care for every 
word. 

“ Mr Snowdon has sent me photographs of the 
church and parsonage at Kinnet. We cannot at- 
tempt anything as ambitious as that. But we 
shall have something pretty nice, and the mission- 


EXTRAdrS FROM GRJFFIN^S LETTERS, 483 


ary’s wife shall have a comfortable home. His 
salary has been raised, and they are hopeful 
about work I told her about Pastor Hanchette’s 
home; she said she would be satisfied with one 
exactly like it. How Mrs. Olmstead’s girls are 
scattered over the land ! When will you be scat- 
tered over here ? 

“ Jurve Seventemth , — Giles is an elder, and works 
like a horse. He takes long rides to help along with 
the prayer-meetings at a distance, and works like 
a man on our farm. Our farm is not a small affair. 

Some new families of the right spirit have come 
in to push things, and more new families not of the 
right spirit to hinder things; but we can push as 
hard as they can hinder, and as all the advantages, 
educational and otherwise, are on our side, it will not 
be hard to bring them into church attendance and 
an outward respect for the Sabbath. Giles has writ- 
ten some stirring letters East about our place. He 
is just the man for his position; looked up to and 
respected, and as firm as adamant on the right side. 

“ His mother is more proud of him and more sat- 
isfied in him tuan she was awhile ago. You will 
hardly believe that she wrote to thank me for 
what I was — or am — to him. That beats all I 
ever thought of! 


484 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


“ People do change ; are changed, I mean. 

“This would be a sad world if we didn’t. In my 
haste (like David) I have said they didn’t. 

“We are not the two fellows we were that day 
in the Boboli Gardens ; we are more blood-brothers 
than ever. He puts up with me, and when I am 
mad with him, I sputter it out and it blows over. 
He says we shall make money. When he gives it 
is real giving, for money is more to him than to 
me — a thousand times. 

“ All I make shall go to the making of this place ; 
the place shall grow with us and we will grow with 
it. I keep Bee informed of the improvements. I 
have my lazy days — or you wouldn’t have such 
endless letters. 

“ Budget (and how her eyes would flash at me for 
saying it !) writes ten times to Giles to twice to me. 
I told him just now that it was just as easy for 
him to love a rich girl as a poor one, and he looked 
at me. I will be a poor man if it is any easier for 
you to love a poor fellow. You may give all you 
have to Kinnet, if you want to ; I suppose you think 
you have Erma to provide for.’* 


XLIV. 


AN OLD BOOK. 

In an old-fasliioned, leather-bound musty volume, 
which Eizpah chanced to find in looking over Miss 
Morehouse’s small library, her eye fell upon a word 
that reminded her of her correspondence with Grif- 
fin; she laughed aloud as she read on, and asked 
Miss Morehouse for a sheet of paper and a pencil, 
that she might copy it. 

It would amuse GriflSn; it was so measured 
and dignified in contrast to the rambling, scolding, 
comical and serious diary he kept for her weekly 
expectation and delight. 

Diary': a private register in which are recorded 
the views and experiences of individuals, and their 
observations on passing events. 

“ The practice of keeping such a record it would 
be obviously wrong to inculcate strenuously on all 
Christians. Thousands have not the education or 
capacity which it requires. 


( 485 ) 


486 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“ Many to whom it might not otherwise be im- 
practicable, are so situated in providence that they 
cannot command the necessary leisure. 

‘‘ In some instances it has been performed in an 
unguarded manner, or injudicious uses have been 
made of the document oy surviving relatives and 
friends. 

“ On the other hand the idea that the record will., soon- 
er or later, meet the eyes of men, and recommend the 
writer to their esteem and admiration as a person of 
eminent piety, is apt, at least, to mingle itself 
with purer views, and even unconsciously to exercise 
a considerable influence on the statements and ex- 
pressions employed'^ 

(The italics are Eizpah’s.) 

“The published journals of some exemplary 
Christians have been so judiciously written, and 
have proved so highly useful for the direction and 
encouragement of others in the service of God, 
that it is a cause of lively gratitude that they 
ever existed, and that they even were given to the 
world. 

“Who will say that it is wrong in any Christian, 
possessing the requisite ability and leisure, provided he 
observe the dictates of modesty and prudence, and 
strive, in dependence upon the divine grace, to 


AJV OLD BOOK. 


487 


be actuated only by pious and honorable motives, 
to record from time to time a few notices of what 
is most memorable in his own experience ? 

“ The review of such memoranda, after months 
and years have passed away, may recall to his 
recollection facts in his history important to himself ^ 
which without such help he would utterly have 
forgotten.” 

With a merry look in her eyes, a look that his 
letters always brought, she bent over the mus- 
ty volume, copying the words that he would read 
in his loneliness, for he was lonely despite his 
work and genial companionship, and she could 
not decide that it was the best thing for her to 
go to him, or ask him to come to her. He had 
never, since that morning at Chateau d’Oex, asked 
her to become his wife. Was he thinking of her 
now only as his dearest friend, as the “sister” 
that she had been at Florence, and in Switzerland ? 

He had written to the Chevils for years ; since 
Blossom died, they had called him “brother.” 

Was she to him what they were ? 

The merry look died away ; the last lines were 
written in deep seriousness; for might the time 
not come when, but for these records, he would 
forget all that he had written to her ? 


488 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


It was SO like him to live in his present ; the 
past was a memory, the present was all ; he was 
not changeable, but any day any new happening 
might take as firm a hold of him as anything 
that had moved him in the past. 

Might not some new friend take her place? 
He admired the missionary’s wife, and wrote en- 
thusiastically of her sweet ways, her making the 
best of things, and her influence among the girls 
and women among her husband’s people. He 
admired beauty, sweetness, refinement, a strong 
character — everywhere he found them; now, as 
ever, every hand that touched him had its mould- 
ing influences. 

No hand like her own had ever touched him, he 
wrote, and she believed that it was true. 

If she must mould him into further strength 
and beauty (and oh, how presumptuous the 
thought sounded as she put it into words !) what 
must she become herself! 

Giles Olmstead was not like him ; were there 
other young men like him ? 

Mr. Merriwether had told her that it was 
through the influence of his wife he had given 
himself to the service of God ; and Mr. Morehouse 
remarked one day; ‘‘I hope Erma will be a 


AJV OLD BOOK. 


489 


strong woman ; her mother was the making of her 
father; he was not the same man after he knew 
Erma Ditmars.” 

Then there were other men like GriiSn, and 
other women had, in the same great measure, 
taken their lives into their hands. 

Still, what had she ever done for Giles? It 
was not due to her influence that he was be- 
coming unlike himself ; but then, she had not 
loved him ! 

It was the love, then, that made some of the 
difference; were men and women alike, were 
grown up hearts like the hearts of little children ; 
were their needs and their natures not so differ- 
ent ? Last night, Erma had laid her head against 
her (after she had been naughty and forgiven) 
with a penitent : “I want you to love me, sister.” 

And Mrs. Olmstead, self-reliant and brave- 
hearted as she was, had wept silent tears upon 
her pillow, because her husband had not spoken his 
love for her. 

The pencil moved slowly, the musty page grew 
dim before her eyes; Ruth must have loved her 
husband, that grand old Boaz,. with the same 
loving heart mth which she loved Naomi. 

There was a grave in Moab, the grave of the 


490 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


husband of her youth ; it may have been through 
loving him, her young Jewish husband, that she 
learned to love his people and his God. 

He might have told her all the marvellous story 
of his' people and his people’s God; perhaps she 
knew of the promise of the seed of the woman, 
Shiloh, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Prophet 
like unto Moses, and to think that through her all 
the nations of the world should be blessed ! 

Of all the cities of Moab nothing was left. Yet 
Kuth was left, because she loved Naomi, and her 
people, and her God. 

Aunt Rizpah had been her Naomi. She loved 
her God. On this same paper, in pencil, she jotted 
down her musings about Ruth. 

Griffin gave her so many things to think about 
she had written to Mrs. Olmstead that he was her 
“ education.” As he had said about Budget, there 
was variety” in himself. 

Miss Morehouse looked up from her book and 
said gratefully: “Rizpah, you are very good to 
give one day of your busy \t^eeks to me.” 

“You are good to let me come; we are always 
in a whirl at home; Mrs. Morehouse loves to have 
her house full of people ; my one day a week with 
you is my quiet time.” 


AN OLD BOOK. 


491 


Miss Morehouse smiled; I am not deceived.” 

“And Erma loves to come; she talks about our 
walk here the day before and the day after.” 

As Eizpah sat bending over the book and medi- 
tating, Miss Morehouse had been watching her 
and thinking that she needed neither beauty of 
face nor finish of manner to make her attractive. 

Eizpah’s spirit, the gratitude and lovingness of 
it, the humility and service of it, had moulded her 
manner, as well as given to her plain features an 
attractiveness of their own. 

A stranger at one of Mrs. Morehouse’s receptions 
had inquired : “ Who is that plain girl in white, 
with the sweet expression and self-forgetful way 
of moving about T 

Eizpah would not have been concerned at the 
careless reply: “Oh, that girl! She has some 
kind of an outlandish name! She is governess 
here, I believe.” 

“ She is not English, and she does not look like 
an American, unless it be an American — Indian.” 

“ She is the governess of a child born in India — 
perhaps — she is an Ayah,” with a laugh, “ an edu- 
cated, Christianized Ayah.” 

“ I would choose her for my children, seeing her 
here to-night,” was the grave reply. “ I saw a 


492 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


plump little creature in blue speak to her on the 
stairs.” 

The words : “ I would choose her for my chil- 
dren,” reached Eizpah as she passed near the 
speaker. As she listened to a prosy old lady, she 
thought of the remark, and wished she might see 
the person chosen lor his children. 

Something reminded her of her, and she repeat- 
ed the words to Miss Morehouse. 

“ I think he must have been speaking of you.” 

“ I wish he were,” was the quick reply. “ I ask 
no higher praise from any man’s lips.” 

“ Who was he ? ” 

“Some one who has travelled in Asia, a friend 
of Mr. Merriwether’s, with the kindliest laugln I 
wanted to know him.” 


XLV. 

GYPSIES AISTD MOAB. 

One evening Eizpah chanced to sit next to Mr. 
Merriwether at dinner. After describing a painting 
upon which he was at work, representing a gypsy 
scene, he asked her if she had ever visited a gypsy 
encampment. 

“In England? No; I have seen something of 
the kind in America, but was told that they were 
not genuine gypsies.” 

“ I think mine are genuine gypsies; I took them 
from life. I’ve been making a study of the gypsies ; 
by the way, have you read Lavengro ? Borrow’s 
Lavengro ? ” 

“That is one of Mr. Morehouse’s great favorites; 
he insisted that I should read it, and I read it not 
only once, but again and again. Last week 1 sent 
a copy to a friend in America.” 

“ Borrow has made a study of them. So have 1. 

I travelled round in search of them. The word is 

( 493 ) 


494 


mZFAH^S HERITAGE. 


said to be a corruption of the word Egyptian; they 
are a vagabond people, found everywhere in our 
time. They have different names among different 
nations; Zingari in Italy, Gitanos in Spain; in 
Germany they are called Lieb-Gauner, wandering 
rogues, a good name for them ; heathens in Hol- 
land, which about expresses it; they call themselves 
by different appellations signifying Hack, but more 
commonly by some word signifying people. But 
you are not interested in all this ? ” 

“I am — ^very much, thank you. Please go on; 
I know almost nothing about them.” 

“ Some authorities class them among the Hin- 
doos; there are roving tribes in India and Persia 
which resemble gypsies. In a paraphrase of the 
book of Genesis, written by an Austrian monk in 
1122, vagrants were as being Ishmaelites, but or- 
ganized bands of gypsies did not appear along the 
Danube until about 1417. A gypsy girl can claim 
descent from an ancient race, you see. A band of 
one hundred and twenty strangers arrived in Paris 
in 1427, saying they were Christians, and came 
from Lower Egypt, and had been expelled by Sara- 
cens. Your face lighted up — what struck you ? ” 

“ I was glad they claimed to be Christians.” 

“They were a queer kind of Christians; they 


GYPSIES AND MOAB. 


495 


professed to understand fortune-telling and palmis- 
try, and were very cunning thieves. They were 
expelled from Paris, but continued their wander- 
ings in France. They appeared in England in 
1506, and in London a few years later. Several 
laws were passed against them, for they were nui- 
sances, thieving and deceit were as natural to them 
as the breath of life. Henry Eighth issued a pro- 
clamation, which was renewed by Elizabeth, making 
their stay in the country for longer than a month 
a capital felony. The Scottish Kings seem to have 
given them a sort of protection. Maria Theresa 
ordered that the numerous bands in her dominions 
should be gathered into settled homes, and be 
taught trades, and that their children should be 
educated — ” 

“ That is what I was thinking ! ” interrupted 
his listener, with, burning cheeks and eyes ; “ in- 
stead of making laws against them, why does not 
Christian England civilize and Christianize them ; 
if the heathen come to our doors, is it not as well as 
for us to go to them ? ” 

“ She wished to have them called Newhauern^ New 
Peasants, but they would not obey her; their wild 
life suited them better; severer measures were 
enforced by Joseph Second, and at present, the 


496 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


gypsies of Hungary, Transylvania, and Eoumania, 
altogether more than two hundred thousand, are 
quite settled and respectable citizens.” 

“ How many are there in England ? ” 

“Not many; they have died off — not more than 
ten thousand, I believe ; the oppressive statutes 
against them have been repealed; they are not out 
of favor among the rural population ; all they have 
to do is to behave themselves.” 

“I should think the mothers and little children 
wQuld be homesick for the happy English homes,” 
said Eizpah. 

“ They love their wild life too well ; vagabond- 
ism runs in their veins. Some of the young gyp- 
sies are fine types of womanhood ; you must see 
my picture — fine teeth, lithe and agile figures — 
fine eyes — Asiatic in type ; they mature very 
young ; they are not a noble race, few redeeming 
characteristics. There is no word in their lan- 
guage to signify God, the soul, or immortality. 
In England the recognized dress of the woman is 
a red cloak with a hood, and a gay handkerchief 
tied over the black hair; very striking on the 
young beauties. It has been a question whether 
the genuine gypsy ever emigrated to America, 
but some English authorities maintain that the 


GYPSIES AND MOAB. 


497 


decrease of English gypsies is due to the fact of 
American emigration ; so you may have seen a 
real English gypsy ! 

“Wouldn’t it be worth while for philanthropists 
to go among them ? Something has been done 
for them in Hungary and Eoumania, you said.” 

“ What an enthusiast you are ! ” he answered, 
laughing. “ Young lady-like, you would start on 
a mission to them to-morrow. But come to Lon- 
don and see my picture first; all gypsy girls are 
not such beauties, though. I have put a fine 
young Saxon in contrast to her — she bends over 
the fire and he stands looking at her; he is a 
young fellow who roughed it with me ; she had a 
pretty, grateful way, there was something better 
in her than gypsy blood.” 

“ Oh, I wish I could see it ! ” exclaimed Eiz- 
pah. “ I would travel ten times to London to 
see it.” 

“ If you were a duchess, I might count on your 
patronage, then.” 

“ Perhaps I can have a photograph of it.” 

“ You most certainly shall.” 

“ I would like a large one ; it must be taken at 
my expense.” 

“ I would like to dress you up in gypsy style 
32 


498 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


and paint you ; you have the figure and teeth of a 

gypsy girl-” 

“ I hope that is all I have of gypsy girlhood,” 
she answered, seriously. 

‘‘Can you dance, and sing, and tinker a ket- 
tle?” 

“ I have never danced ; I sing to Erma, some- 
times, and I am quite used to housekeeping.” 

“ It is refreshing to find some one as interested 
in this alien race as I am ; I must have you up to 
my studio. I’ll speak to Mrs. Morehouse about 
it.” 

“ Two generations of English blood in her 
veins;” was not that in Aunt Kizpah’s letter? 
Was there anything gypsy about her excepting 
her figure and her teeth? She was no darker 
than the brunette opposite, chatting to Mr. More- 
house ; perhaps her mother’s people had come 
from Eoumania, where the gypsies educated their 
children and lived in settled habitations ! 

Had they no God, because the word was not in 
their language? Were not the sins of the gypsy 
race included in the “ sins of the world ” ? 

Were they worse than the Moabites ? 

They worshipped idols. Her mother knew of the 
God of the English people ; and had she not, long 


GYPSIES AJVD MOAB. 


499 


ago, chosen to serve Aunt Eizpah’s God, the Lamb 
of God, who takes away the sin of the world ? 

A lady upon the other side of Mr. Merriwether 
had caught the word “ studio,” and was asking 
numerous questions; Rizpah was relieved that no 
one spoke to her; the picture of the gypsy girl 
and the young man looking at her was before her 
eyes ; Griffin should have the photograph and 
have Aunt Rizpah’s letter with it. . Boaz married 
Euth, and she was a Moabitess; Christ in his life 
on the earth came* from that heathen race ; had 
they the word “ God” in their language, she won- 
dered. 

Would she find at somebody’s dinner some one 
to tell her all about the Moabites ? 

“ Mr. Merriwether, do you know all about the 
Moabites ? ” 

‘‘ The Moabites ? Are they a kind of gypsy ? ” 

“ I don’t know ; that is what I would like to 
know.” 

“ I haven’t gone into the Moabites. Oh, I did 
paint Euth once; she was a Moabitess, wasn’t 
she? Ill introduce you to somebody who has a 
taste for antiquities ; he’ll know about them. He 
has travelled in Asia, and like all travellers, is 
willing to bore a good listener.” 


500 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, " 


“ Thank you/^ said Eizpah, “ I shall not soon 
forget to-night.” 

Half an hour later she was wedged into a corner 
between an old lady who breathed asthmatically 
and fanned herself continually, and a gentleman 
in spectacles, with a bald head and kindly eyes, 
who liked nothing better than to be asked ques- 
tions. 

“ My friend, Merriwether, said you were inter- 
ested in the Moabites,” he began, briskly, think- 
ing that she looked as though she were interested 
in them and everybody else. 

“I am interested in one of them, the only one I 
know anything about, and I am interested to learn 
about her land and her people.” 

“ Oh, yes, Tve been there — I travelled all 
through that region on horseback, five of us, and 
one of our company wrote a book; I’ll get a copy 
for you, I have an extra one ; we were especially 
interested in Moab. That’s the ancient name of 
it, you know; not a big place, on the east shore of 
the Dead Sea, and the east bank of the Jordan, 
about fifty miles long by twenty broad. Only a 
big farm to you Americans ! A few scattered 
Arabs inhabit the land at present ; it is covered 
with ruined villages and towns. It was populous 


GYPSIES AND MOAB. 


501 


in its day. Balak was king of Moab, of course 
you know; you remember the story of his offer to 
Balaam. Moses died and was buried in the land 
of Moab, that is something to know and remem- 
ber;' 

By Nebo’s lonely mountain, 

On this side Jordan^s wave, 

In a vale in the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave.^^ 

That was in Euth^s country. Moab was conquerea 
by Saul, and David made his great-grandmother’s 
country (was she his great-grandmother ? ) tribu- 
tary to his own kingdom. The name, like that 
of Edom and Ammon, was finally lost in that of 
the Arabians. They were an object of national 
detestation to the Hebrews; they are often con- 
temptuously spoken of in the prophets. Euth is 
the redeeming feature of the story of Moab. 
Have you heard of the Moabite stone ? ” 

“No,” saidEizpah, eagerly, “please tell me about 
it.^’ 

“Gypsies and Moabites!” said the gentleman, 
with a laugh. “I don’t often find a young lady so 
much of an antiquarian; the last American girl I 
talked to, was full of Paris.” 

“ I have been full of that,” replied Eizpah, think- 


502 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE. 


ing of the Chevils, “ but I do not stay full of one 
subject.’’ 

“Then it will not be Moabthe next time I see 
you.” 

“It will be Moab until I learn all I can about it; 
I am not through with the gypsies yet.” 

“ About the Moabite stone ! That was discovered 
in sixty-eight, not long ago, you see, at Dhiban, 
in Moab; it is black Basaltic granite, with an 
inscription of thirty-four lines in Hebrew — Phe- 
nician characters. The only European who saw 
it in a perfect state was Mr. Klein of the Jerusa- 
lem mission society. The Arab tribes had to have 
a quarrel over it, when they found Europeans 
thought it valuable, and they were afraid the 
Turks would make the stone a pretext for inter- 
fering in the government of the country, so they 
savagely lighted a fire on it, and when it was heated 
threw water upon it which broke it into three large 
and several small fragments. It is believed that 
the inscription dates from about 920 before Christ. 
Euth is supposed to have lived about 1250 before 
Christ, so she had nothing to do with that inscrip- 
tion,” Eizpah’s new. friend remarked with a quiz- 
zical laugh. 

“Cannot the inscription be deciphered?” Eizpah 


GYPSIES AND MOAB. 


503 


inquired, smiling into the kindly eyes behind the 
spectacles. 

“ Oh, yes. It was set up by Mesha, king of Moab, 
who records his wars with Omri, king of Israel and 
his successors. The fragments of the stone were 
purchased by the French government for thirty-two 
thousand francs, and taken to the Louvre. You 
know all about the Louvre ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Perhaps you saw it, and was not aware of it.” 

“ With what different eyes I should study it 
now.^^ 

“ It pays to know something before one travels, 
doesn’t it?” he asked good-humoredly. “Now, 
what have you to tell me ? ” 

“ Have you ever been in Alaska ? ” 

“ Alaska ! Bless me, no. Have you ? ” 

“ No,” laughed Rizpah, “ but a friend has, and I 
can tell you something about it.” 

“ Before she slept that night, she wrote to Grif- 
fin, enclosing Aunt Rizpah’s precious letter. 

“ I do not think I ever told you all my little, sad, 
dark history ; you know that I am not a real Chev- 
il, but I am not certain that you know the other 
part of it, unless Giles has made it known to yon. 
Nobody knows who I am. Some people, most 


504 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


people think so much of ancestry; I do not think 
Christ did, for although he was of royal lineage, 
Euth, the Moabitess and Eahab the woman of 
Jericho, were among his ancestors. 

Your mother does, and Mrs. Chevil; I do not 
know what Mrs. Olmstead thinks — practically. It 
is not much to have English blood for two gener- 
ations only, and then back of that to have your 
ancestors wild people, wicked people. The English 
blood was inherited from my mother; I know 
nothing about my father; I think I do not desire 
to know ; I am afraid of knowing. 

“Aunt Eizpah told me once that I had never told 
her a lie ; that was because I was never afraid of 
her ; I told her that I had told lies to other people. 
She talked to me about the truth, and made me 
kneel down with her, and ask God to bless my 
tongue, and keep it from lying and deceit. 

“ She taught me to love work, never to let my fin- 
gers be idle ; in everything she sought to counter- 
act the tendencies I might have inherited from a 
lawless people. 

“ She taught me to pray to God about every sep- 
arate thing she wished me to become. Now I 
know she was ever on the watch against my wick- 
ed blood. 


GYPSIES AND MOAB. 


505 


“ Few children have such constant watchfulness. 

“ How it was that my father married my mother, 
and who he was, 1 can never know. I like to think 
the ‘ farm ’ my poor mother remembered was sim- 
ple, innocent, rural life, such as I see and love, 
when we drive out through English lanes. 

“ Her father was English, also — and she may have 
been like him ; in my appearance I am not English, 
I do not know what I am like ; but Erma loves my 
face. 

“Perhaps after you read Aunt Eizpah’s letter, 
(please return it) you may not care for me, as I am 
sure now that you do, not knowing that I have 
such strange blood in my veins. 

“You have travelled so much that a foreigner is 
not a person to shrink from ; you and I have been 
foreigners ourselves. 

“ Perhaps Giles was influenced by this letter ; one 
impulsive moment I gave it to him, because he re- 
minded me of Aunt Eizpah; beside I would not 
conceal anything about my birth from any one 
who has a kindly heart toward me. 

• “ All the people on the earth are made of one 

blood ; we have inherited ours as God willed. I 
do not flght against my inheritance; I do not 
fight against anything God has chosen for me. I 


506 


I^IZPAff^S HERITAGE. 


only pray to him the harder, not to make me like 
the English, or the American, but like his own 
choice for me. 

“ Some time I will send you the copy of a paint- 
ing from gypsy life. I want to go to Eoumania 
and Hungary, and see the gypsies; I feel as if I 
had learned a great deal to-night. Oh, what a 
wide, wide world this is ! ‘0, thou that hearest 

prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.’ 

“ Wouldn’t everybody think me wild if I should 
go to Eoumania and teach the gypsy girls ? Why 
not, as well as Hindoo girls, and Syrian girls ? 
Why not, as well as English girls and American 
girls? Why not, as well as those Indian girls in 
Alaska ? 

“ But I cannot take Erma with me. The thought 
that brings me nearest to Christ, that keeps me 
nearest to him, next to the thought that he loves 
me, is that he knows all about me.” 

Griffin was impressible; after he read this letter 
the tears rolled down his cheeks; he never read it 
afterward without full eyes. 


XL VI. 


AUNT MATILDA. 

One winter, because of a cough that Mr. More- 
house had been troubled wdth through the sum- 
mer, and which threatened to confine him to the 
house in November, Mrs. Morehouse proposed 
Montreux. 

“ Rizpah, those same rooms ! Those warm days 
will build Mr. Morehouse up in a week ! Now I 
have thought of it I shall not rest until we start.” 

• ‘‘Excellent!” said Rizpah. “I -fought of it 
yesterday, but I remembered that snow-storm.” 

“ That may have been unusual, and it was only 
for a day; think of the days afterward. Yes, Jack 
shall go to Montreux.” 

“ Erma and I will live in the school-room, then. 
Sha’n’t we have a good time to study ? ” 

“I suppose Uncle Jack will want to take her; 
but Uncle Jack must do without her one winter; 
it is time he discovered that his wife is a good 
nurse and good company.” 


( 507 ) 


508 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ Miss Morehouse will miss him ! ” 

“Oh, Matilda! She can’t always have what 
she wants, either. I wonder how it would do to 
send you and Erma to her ! ” 

“ Erma would be too happy in that cottage. 
She says it is like playing she was a poor child, 
and had only one servant, and had to sleep in 
that small room ; she thinks there’s more variety 
in being poor than in being rich.” 

“ She wouldn’t be rich but for Griffin, dear boy. 
I often think how much we all owe to his gener- 
osity ; at the time I did not think much of it ; I 
did not very well see how he could do any differ- 
ently ; but Mr. Morehouse says every boy would not 
have done so much for his mother, especially when 
a stranger was to have all the benefit of it; but I 
couldn’t think of Jack as a stranger, or as the 
money not rightfully belonging to me. Still Grif- 
fin never loved money like some.” 

“ He does not love it well enough to hoard it,” 
said Kizpah, thinking of the new buildings he 
had written about in his last letter, “and in 
investing he does not think of the return in 
dollars and cents, he is making homes for work- 
ing men; he does not say so, but I know that 
he has given largely to that school building and 


AC/JVT MATILDA. 


509 


that hall for the Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tion.” 

“ That’s what I told Jack, and that we might as 
well have the luxury of it as those wild folks in 
that horrid West. The very thought of such peo- 
ple and such places makes me unhappy; and when 
I think my boy is spending his best days I’m ner- 
vous enough to fly. Jack says its glorious work, 
and he wishes he were in the midst of it; but 
that’s a man’s way of looking at it. Not but that 
I’ll be willing to go to the ends of the earth for 
the sake of his cough. He coughed one hour 
steady this morning and was too weak to dress 
after it. Colorado has built GrifSn up. He says 
that camping out did it. Well, we can’t go this 
winter! And Montreux may do it for us ; and 
there’s Nice, if we don’t like Montreux. That fit 
of coughing will make him ready for anything, 
and I’ll push the matter before he gets over it.” 

Mrs. Morehouse was in her element ; something 
to plan, and something to push, were the oxygen 
of her daily atmosphere ; if no one made it for her, 
she made it for herself. 

For the last month she had been sighing to 
spend the winter abroad; the Merriwethers were 
going abroad, and Eizpah’s old friend, the Asiatic 


510 


RIZFAH'S HERITAGE. 


traveller, intended to send his family to Montreux. 

“But, Eizpah, perhaps you would like to go 
with us,” said Mrs. Morehouse, after the silent 
consideration of two minutes. 

“ I certainly would ! And to Montreux, of all 
places.” 

“Then you shall go; you and Erma.” 

Rizpah looked up from the song she was copying 
for Miss Merriwether; the lake and the mountains, 
climbing with Erma, teaching her to paint every 
flower they gathered, letters to Griffin and Mrs. 
Olmstead from the same dear old places, the drives 
to Chateaux d’Oex, and a call upon the Pastor 
Hanchette — 

“ Ah, that makes you radiant ! You shall not be 
shut up in the school-room here. You have had 
enough of that school-room for bne life time. And 
you like the Merri wethers so much, Rizpah, it is 
just the thing for you. That beautiful child 
that you rave over will be there. 1 don’t very 
well see how we can do anything else. We 
may run down to Florence before we rebarn. I 
know you are tired of Teign mouth ; I am mortally 
tired of staying in one place so long; and but 
for Jack’s cough I don’t see how we should ever 
have got away.” 


AUNT MATJLDA, 


511 


“ But — ” Eizpali’s eyes had lost their radiance, 
‘‘there’s Aunt Matilda — Miss Morehouse ; how 
long the winter will be to her without Erma 
and me.” 

“Nonsense ! She has her kittens and her books 
and her faithful maid, and old friends call upon 
her ; she must not depend upon you young folks. 
I knew you were, making her too dependent upon 
you; it doesn’t do to lei people become so depen- 
dent. I wouldn’t let any one but Jack depend 
upon me; and it isn’t well to let even husbands 
depend too much.” 

The disappointment was all in Eizpah’s eyes. 

“ Now don’t be sentimental and self-sacrificiug. 
I knew Maria was spoiling you and making a 
martyr of ^mu, like herself. Her letters are as bad 
for you as her presence. If there^s any society left 
in those Chevil girls, their mother may be truly 
thankful. Eizpah Chevil ! You shall not stay at 
home with a rheumatic old woman.” 

“ Her old Jane is faithfulness itself” 

“ And what is Matilda to you ? She is not your 
own flesh and blood.” 

“ As much as any one else,” said Eizpah, “ and 
dear Mrs. Morehouse, it isn’t all in flesh and blood. 
There are other ways of being kin.” 


512 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ I wish GriflSn were here ; he would take you 
off by main force.’’ 

“ Then I am glad he is not.” 

“You know you ivant to go.” 

“ I know it too well ; I want to go with all my 
heart.” 

“Then I repeat, you shall not stay; Jack and I 
have something to say about it. And,” in a con- 
vincing tone, with a laugh, as though she had 
gained her point already, “what about Erma? 
Yon know it is the best thing for her ! ” 

“It will be good — some time ; I am not sure 
that it is the best thing this winter.” 

“ You will come around if she coaxes you ! 
And now 111 go and see what I can do with Jack.” 

Eizpah never knew what her decision would have 
been — Montreux was tugging at her heart as she 
finished copying the words of the song, and while 
she was at work on the last line, Erma ran in saying 
some one had come from Aunt Matilda; she was 
very ill and wanted Eizpah. 

“Erma can go with Uncle Jack,” said Uncle 
Jack’s wife, as Eizpah was making hurried prepara- 
tions for a stay of several days. 

“Where, Aunt Helen?” 

“To Switzerland.” 


AC/NT MATILDA. 


513 


“ Where you were talking about ? I cannot go with- 
out Rizpah ; I would die without my sister Rizpah?” 

“ What would Uncle Jack say to that ? ” 

“He said he was glad when I told him so once, 
for he would not stay with me very long and he 
would give me to her forever.” 

The next week Uncle Jack and his wife started 
for Montreux; Eizpah and Erma took up their abode 
at the cottage that same day : Miss Morehouse, 
holding Eizpah’s hand, with the tears streaming 
down her thin face, could speak no word of welcome 
save, “ Eizpah, it is like you, and I canT say any- 
thing better.” 

“ We were so glad to come. Aunt Matilda,” cried 
Erma, “ we like your little house, and I just love 
your kittens.” 

“ It is too^ood to be true,” sighed the invalid out 
of her perfect pleasure, “all I want to do now is to 
go to sleep and know that I shall wake up and find 
you.” 

“It makes a little girl of me,” said Eizpah. “I 
want to make your rooms look like Aunt Eizpah’s ; 
we had sunshine and flowers and good times, from 
morning till night.” 

“ I am the little girl,” said Erma. “I like to be the 

only little girl. I shall be ten years old, in five days.” 

33 


XLVII. 


‘^DEAE BUDGET.” 

A BUDGET of letters came on the first day of 
December; there was a large parcel for Erma, 
from Uncle Jack and Aunt Helen, that was not to 
be opened until to-morrow ; a package from Mrs. 
Olmstead for Erma had been laid away in Eizpah’s 
desk for a week ; the “ Mother’s Parliament ” had 
been statedly held ; without it, Kizpah said she 
would have lost courage many times in the educa- 
tion of Erma ; the child had been a handful and a 
heartful. 

“Uncle Jack says Pm too much for you,” she 
had said tearfully, one day. “ I don^t like to be 
too much for you, I want to be exactly enough.” 

Her Aunt Helen laughed sometimes over a re- 
mark of the child, that first summer she knew her; 
she had remonstrated with her, concerning a 
burst of ill-temper; an hour after the child came to 

her, and standing solemnly before her, had lifted 
( 514 ) 


^^DEAR budget: 


515 


her chubby hand, and poked a small finger under 
her eyes, saying, impressively: “I don’t love you 
as much as I do my finger nail.” In those days, 
nearly every day she had sighed : “1 wish I was 
dead.” 

Nothing amused her half an hour at a time, 
nothing surprised her, very few things delighted 
her ; more than anything else, she cared for stories 
read aloud, and these must be startling or pathetic, 
and for long drives into the country. 

“ If that girl you speak of, makes anything out 
of her, she ought to belong to the Legion of Honor,” 
Miss Morehouse had said to her new sister-in-law. 

That day, as Eizpah read her letters, with the 
child sitting beside her, working upon her slate, 
Miss Morehouse recalled her own remark. j 

She was not an attractive child to strangers; her 
round blue eyes were not beautiful, they were 
simply wide awake; her chubby, freckled nose, 
wide mouth, straight red hair and rosy cheeks had 
no prettiness, beyond the prettiness of healthy 
childhood; but her dewy skin, her sweet lips, her 
clinging arms and caressing fingers were more 
than all the beauty in the world to the sister who 
sat near her; she was obedient and truthful, and 
she loved her. Eizpah would not have changed 


516 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


her hair to waving gold, or taken off one freckle ; 
she would have been spoiled for her, had she pos 
sessed the rare beauty . of Bud Chevil. 

“ She is mine, she is miW,” was the song her 
heart sang over the child. 

One of Kizpah’s letters was from Emily Chevil. 
After the first two pages of home news, and school 
news, (Emily was teaching at Airs. Olmstead’s 
Seminary) she wrote abruptly: “I wish I could 
see you, and tell you something that you have a 
right to know ; you must know something about 
it from Griffin and Airs. Olmstead. I have no idea 
when it begun on his part : on mine it was long 
ago, in the days of Bellosguardo and Ponte Vecchio 
and the Boboli Gardens. 

“It was always my way to make heroes out of com- 
mon, every-day stuff, and he says I have done it 
this time to my cost ; but I know how noble he 
is, as no one else can know; Griffin writes that 
he has known all his faults and weaknesses from 
his childhood, and if I am brave I need not be 
afraid of them; he has not killed him, and he 
will never kill me. That is Griffin’s way; no one 
ever minds anything he says. 

“ I am not afraid of finding one fault in him ; I am 
not afraid of finding ten ; like that tiny mole in 


^^DEAR budget: 


517 


his left eye brow, a slight blemish only the more 
brings out his beauty of character. 

“ Like a silly girl, I asked him if he had ever lov- 
ed any one but me ; and he told me something about 
knowing you when you were a girl at father^s 
Aunt Eizpah’a He did not say that you were 
ever engaged, so I suppose he never told you ; but 
I think you must have admired him and been 
proud of his friendship, and will congratulate me. 

“ I am proud that you are the only other woman 
he ever thought about ; I do not see how he can 
think of me now after haVing loved you ; but he 
says, and you will be glad to know it, that that 
was like water unto wine. There, I am ' a silly 
girl, but I am too proud and happy not to tell you. 
I want to tell darling Blossom. But she is be- 
yond our small life, and knows perfectly what lov- 
ing is. 

“ Pater growls over it, but he is satisfied ; mamma 
likes it better than my teaching; and 1 will tell 
you that I like it better than anything. He will 
help me to live a large life ; I feel so narrow with- 
out him.” 

“ Dear Budget,” smiled and sighed Eizpah. 


XLVIIL 


FOR ERMA. 

The next morning Erma was ten years old, and 
Rizpah gave her one of Mrs. Olmstead’s “ Calen- 
dars.” On the vellum cover, Rizpah had painted 
Erma’s name, age, and the date of her birthday, 
with the words: “Even a child is known by her 
doings.” Erma could read the handsome plain 
penmanship, as easily as print. 

Her birthday was the second of December; 
there were thirty suggestions for the child to 
read to Sister Rizpah and ask questions about, dur- 
ing this first month of her eleventh year. 

I. — About Helping. 

“ God sent you into his world to help. He has 
given you ten years to get ready to help. Do you 
not think that you should bo ready to do many 
things that help by this time? 

“Every bright look helps, every obedient act 

helps, every gentle reply helps, every unselfish act 
( 518 ) 


FOR ERMA. 


519 


helps, every time you think of some one else when 
you would prefer to think of yourself helps, every 
new thing you learn helps, every hour helps every 
day, and every day helps every year, and every year 
helps a long while in a life-time. Every feeling 
of love helps, every pray-er helps, every time you 
tell the truth helps; all these things help God to 
make you one of his little helpers. 

II. — About Making the Best of Things. 

“ Some things are not one bit good — a headache 
isn’t; but you must make the best of it; you must 
be so cheerful and patient, that you will really make 
it one of the best things that could come to you. 

“You must make the best of a hard lesson; make 
a good lesson out of it; you must make the best of 
a rainy day, make sunshine out of it. You must 
make the best of a disappointment; some one said 
once, he spelled that word with an H : making it 
His appointment. 

“You must make the best of Erma Morehouse; do 
not suffer her to be a second-rate girl in anything; 
be first-rate. 

III. — About Taking Advice. 

“ Little girls do know a great many things ; you 
know a great deal more than you did when you 


520 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


were one year old; you have learned it by taking 
advice ; by listening and obeying. A child four 
years old, who would not believe and obey you, 
would be very silly, and might get hurt through 
not taking your advice; you will be just as silly and 
will surely get hurt, if you do not listen and obey 
people who have lived longer than ten years in 
your world. 

IV. — ^About Giving Up. 

“ God gives you a great many things to hdd an 
to ; hold them fast, never give them up ; but there 
are some things you must give up. 

“ You must give up your own way when it is a 
silly, naughty way; you must give up your own 
comfort when it interferes with the comfort of 
some one else; you must give up the easiest chair 
in the room, the prettiest flowers, the largest piece 
of cake, the warmest corner ; you must choose the 
poorest things for yourself, and the best things for 
some one else, if you would be like J esus, the Lord, 
who gave up his home in Heaven for us, and then 
gave up his own life also, for us. 

V. — About Holding On. 

“ Hold on to the truth, hold on to what you have 
learned, hold on to your promises, hold on to your 


FOR ERMA. 


521 


word, hold on to jonr temper that it doesn’t run 
away from you; hold on to your tongue that it 
does not speak fretfully, or crossly, or falsely, or 
angrily. Hold on to a good friend ; hold on to 
your time and do not waste it. 

VI. — About Self-Control. 

“ Do not think ‘ Sister Kizpah must make me 
mind.’ MaTce yourself- mind. Say, ‘ Erma, you 
must do it,’ and then do it. 

“Make yourself stop, make yourself go on ; make 
yourself speak, make yourself be silent. 

VII. — ^About One Thing at a Time. 

“ Finish that history lesson before you take up 
your pencils to draw ; do not do one example and 
throw down your slate and begin to write a letter ; 
read that book you have begun before you take 
up that fascinating story ; make that trimming for 
your apron before you begin to knit the lace for 
something else; and finish everything you under- 
take ; if it is not worth finishing, do not begin it. 

VIII. — About Tears. 

“ Do not cry about everything ; I know a girl 
who used to burst into tears about everything she 


522 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


did not like. Would you like to live in the house 
with her ? 

“ I know another, who, when she began to cry, 
seemed to have forgotten how to stop. Tears are 
too good a thing to waste. 

IX. — About Answering Back. 

“ Do not answer back ; answer, but do not answer 
6ac^. A pretty, kind, bright reply is one of the 
best things in the world. Make it a study how to 
make replies. First, always speak the truth. 
Second, always be fair. Third, never be sharp. 

I said to a girl once: ‘ Do not speak so shorV 

“ She replied: ‘ The truth is not long.’ 

“Do not spoil so good a thing as the truth by 
the way you speak it. ‘ No,’ ‘ Yes,’ may be the 
truth, but a pleasant word or two with it, does not 
make it any less the truth, and may help some- 
body to love it instead of-hate it, by the way you 
put it. 

X. — About Doing Kindnesses. 

“ Do them kindly. When I was a little girl I 
learned : 

‘ Politeness is to do and say, 

The kindest thing in the kindest way.^ 

“A kind thing unkindly done, may not be a 
kindness. 


£j^3rA. 


523 


XI. — About Receiving Favors. 

“ Make somebody glad that she has done some- 
thing for you. Take the gift so gratefully that 
the giver will be repaid with your taking it. 
Suppose you do not want the thing given you. 
Do you not want the love and thoughtfulness 
that gives it to you ? 

XII. — About People. 

“Never say: ‘ I hate that girl.^ Suppose you do; 
some girls are almost disagreeable enough to be 
hated ; do not say it; saying makes it worse; must 
you say something; would you not rather say: ‘I 
wonder what I can do for her ? ’ 

“ Doing for people makes you love them. 

“Everybody needs something done for them; 
watch and see if you can do it. And then do it so 
easily, so quietly, that they will think of it and not 
of you. Little girls can only do little things; but 
oh, how grateful they are to us grown-up, tired 
people ! 

XIII. — About Secrets 

“When I was a little girl, I used to promise that 
I would ‘never, never tell.^ That is not safe for 
little girls; it is not safe to listen to what you 
must never, never tell ; it is not safe to read a book 


524 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


that you must hide away ; it is not safe to do any- 
thing that you are ashamed, or afraid to speak of ; 
share your ‘ secrets,^ (for little girls may have 
some happy secrets) with the one who loves you 
best. 

XIV. — About Sundays. 

“ Every day is the Lord’s day, but the first day of 
the week is his especial day; it is the day for us 
to be most glad in, for his rising from the grave 
was to make all the world rejoice. Let everything 
you do on this day, be something he will be glad 
to have you do; learn something new about him 
every Sunday, and some new thing to do for him 
throughout the week. 

XV. — About Eeading the Bible. 

“ If I were you, I would find every place where 
child, or children, or youth, are spoken of ; I would 
find every place meant for me. I began to read 
the Bible through when I was a little girl. Form 
a hoibit of reading a little every day. By-and-by 
you will be hungry for it, if you miss it, as you 
would be hungry for your breakfast, should you 
miss that. Suppose you see if you can find some- 
thing in the Bible about these things I am writing 
to you about. 


FOR ERMA. 


525 


XVL — About Asking Questions. 

“Before you ask a question, say to yourself* 
‘ Can I find it out for myself? ^ If you can it will 
be worth twice as much to you. 

“ About intrusive questions ; never ask a ques- 
tion of any person when you would not be willing 
for that same person to ask you that same ques- 
tion. 

‘ ‘ And it may be that you would be willing to 
answer a question that another would not; as the 
little girl said: ‘You must do as if you was them' 

“Even a child can think of these things: even 
a child can be unselfish, considerate, refined. 

XVII. — About Exaggerating. 

“Never say you will be ready in ‘five miilutes,’ 
and keep some one waiting ten. Never say a 
thing is longer, or shorter, or more or less, blacker 
or whiter, or thicker or thinner than it is. 

“ Be exact; but don’t be too exact; do not say you 
will be ready in seven minutes and a quarter, or 
that a ribbon is one inch and one-twentieth of an 
inch wide, or that there were fifteen, or possibly 
sixteen persons present ; do not be painfully exact. 
See clearly, and speak as you see. 


526 


RTZPAWS HERITAGE, 


XVITI. — Abotjt Making Friends. 

“ We do not find friends readily; we make them. 
We make them out of something in ourselves ; 
I hope you have the material in you to make many 
friends, and to keep them. An obliging disposi- 
tion makes friends, and so does frankness and 
gratitude and faithfulness. 

(Sister Rizpah will talk all these words over 
with you.) 

XIX. — About Keeping Things to Yourself. 

“Some things are besfc kept to oneself; it isn’t 
worth while to speak of slight annoyances, or to 
trouble our friends if we happen to have a head- 
ache, or a cut finger, or a little disappointment; 
but the real things that we need help in, it is best 
to speak of. When I was a little girl I kept too 
many things to myself, and worried and cried by 
myself, when it would have done me a world of 
good to tell some one who could help with advice 
and sympathy. 

XX. — About Talking about People. 

“ It is safe not to say anything about a person 
that we would not say if we knew that person stood 
just outside the door listening. It is safe to look 


FOR ERMA. 


527 


at the bright side of people, and very safe to talk 
about that side. It is safest not to sit in judgment 
upon any body. Jesus Christ is the Judge of all the 
world, and the only Judge who can judge justly. 
Shall we leave judgment to him ? 

XXL — About Pushing Ourselves Forward. 

“ Little girls do that sometimes. It is a great 
deal better to stand behind and push some one 
else. Do not try to bring yourself into notice. 
Do right, and God will know it ; and his praise is 
the best praise of all. 

“ When you come to see me, I will tell you a 
story under each of these heads. 

XXII. — About Making Mistakes. 

“ Never think that a mistake is as bad as a sin, 

“ Everybody makes mistakes. Peter made a 
great many, and every one was a help to him 
afterward. God makes very beautiful things out 
of his children’s mistakes. He designs the pat- 
terns of our lives, and he knows just how to work 
the mistakes in. 

“ If you love him and are trying to obey, he does 
not think the mistakes half such ugly things as 
you do ; Sister Kizpah does not think you such a 


528 


RIZFAH^S HERITAGE, 


very naughty child when you take crooked stitch- 
es in your sewing. 

XXIII. — About Trying to be Grown Up. 

“Never try that. Never think you must talk as 
Eizpah does to people.; it would be very imperti- 
nent in you. 

“ Grown up little girls are very disagreeable 
things. Be a little girl ten years old, until you 
are eleven, and then be only eleven. Be ready to 
take advice and never ready to give it. I know a 
little girl who used to be unhappy because she did 
not dare talk to people about their sins ; she read 
about people who did, and thought it was her 
‘ duty.’ 

“ A little girl’s duty is the only duty a little 
girl has. 

XXIV. — About Reading. 

“ Read booksthat help you to think. Read books 
that you wish to read tivice. Read books for a 
girl of ten rather than books for a girl of eight. 
Read books that you have to lift yourself up to; 
read something too hard for you rather than some- 
thing too easy for you. 

“ In teaching a child to walk, we hold out our 
hands a little ahead ; he has to reach and stretch 


FOR ERMA, 


529 


and take a step forward ; so let your mind reach, 
and stretch, and take a step forward in the books 
you read. 

“(I suspect Sister Eizpah will think I have 
written these suggestions for her; no matter, we 
will let her read them.) 

XXV. — About Serving. 

“Be a little servant. Wait on people; watch 
and see what errand you can do ; little feet and 
little hands can do a great deal of serving. Miri- 
am watched her little brother, Ehoda ran to the 
door, a lad had the loaves and fishes, and a little 
maid told about the prophet. 

XXVI. — Showing Love. 

“ Love cannot very well keep itself hidden, 
unless in very selfish hearts; we show temper, we 
show dislike, we show ingratitude, we show 
sorrow, we show disappointment, why not show 
the best thing in the world? Hanging around 
one’s neck, holding one’s hand, following one from 
room to room, may be only a sort of selfishness; 
show love unselfishly. Show it by obedience, 
show it by service, show it by a readiness to make 
the one you love happy, and above all, show it by 

a cheerful, instant, unquestioning obedience. 

34 


530 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE, 


“ Christ said: ‘ If ye love me — keep my command- 
mentsJ A loving heart can always find ways of 
pouring itself out ; you cannot hide real love any 
more than you can hide the sunlight. 

XXVII. 

“ Make it easy for people to talk to you. I have 
not written any heading, for I did not know 
exactly what to call it. Tve seen a little girl 
stand sullen when she was reproved; I’ve seen a 
little girl shut her mouth up tight, when spoken 
to of a fault; I have even heard a little girl stamp 
her feet and slam the door when her mother spoke 
to her about a wrong doing. It is very hard to 
teach little girls; do not make it harder by being 
sullen and furious. 

XXVIII. — About Jealousy. 

“ Every little girl knows what this word means. 
A little girl accustomed to all the love, and care 
and attention of one loving heart, may very easily 
desire to keep it all to herself. 

“ I heard a little girl say once : ‘ I felt like killing 
Susie when mother used to kiss her.’ Would you 
want somebody to love no one beside you? Loving 
makes people so happy, do you not wish sister Riz- 
pahto love many people? God wishes her to love 


FOR ERMA, 


531 


ever so many people ; do not, by being jealous, set 
your will against God’s will in this matter. 

XXIX. — About Temper. 

“It is a good thing to have a temper ; it is a 
good thing to have a strong temper ; it is such a 
good thing — such a good soldier that the one who 
owns it must never permit it to fight on the wrong 
side. Choose which side to be on, and put General 
Temper on the side you choose, and then help him to 
fight it out like a brave warrior. Do not let him go 
over to the enemy for even one battle ; General 
Good Temper is a splendid fellow; General Happy 
Temper is lovely to live with; General Strong Tem- 
per is like a north wind blowing everything before 
it ; and on your side (for I know which side you 
will choose) he is a force in this world. 

XXX. — About Your Best Friend. 

“ I know Him ; I know a great deal about Him. 
I wish I could tell you all I know about Him. He 
has made you, and put you just where you are, that 
you may learn about Him ; anything that does not 
teach you, directly or indirectly, about Him, is 
worth nothing at all. When you come to America 
the steamer that takes you in another direction, is 
worth nothing in the matter of bringing you here ; 


532 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


the steamer that does not move at all is worth 
nothing to you ;• and so the thing in your life that 
carries you away from Him, the thing that stands 
still and does not take you one step nearer, is worth 
nothing at all to you ; it is worth evil to you and 
that is worse than nothing at all. Go a little jour- 
ney towards Him every day in what you read and 
study, and in the friends you choose. You will 
have to grow up to many things I have written; 
O, little girl, you are growing up — may you grow 
up in Him.” 


XLIX. 


HEESELF. 

Before Erma’s eleventh year was ended, there 
were changes in her English home; within six 
months of each other, her uncle and aunt Matilda 
died; three months after her uncle’s death, with 
her aunt Helen and sister Eizpah, she sailed for 
America. 

“I am yours only, and altogether,” she said to 
Eizpah, the day they sailed; “he gave me to you; 
I will never belong to any one else, no one else 
has the shadow of a right to me.” 

“ Don’t be vehement,” reproved Mrs. Morehouse, 
languidly, “ you will not find any one on that side 
of the world to dispute it.” 

Griffin met them in New York, and the same 
day took them to a furnished house, he had rented 
for his mother in the city, where the Chevils still 
resided. 

“ Now you are home^ mother,” he exclaimed, put- 

( 533 ) 


534 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


ting her into a cushioned chair before a grate fire. 

“ No place will ever seem like home to me again,” 
she sobbed, dropping her head on the arm of her 
chair. 

Griffin stood looking down at her; she was 
youthful still, her dark hair scarcely touched with 
white, her cheeks rounder than when he saw her 
last ; as changeable, as self-willed, as considerate 
of herself; she would be pleased with something 
new to-morrow. 

“What I have gone through she sobbed, burst- 
ing out afresh at the recollection, “and Eizpah and 
Erma wrapped up in each other, and you in that 
dreadful West ! ” 

“ But I am here now, dear, and strong enough 
to stay all winter,^’ said her tall son, as soothingly 
as he would have spoken to a child. 

“ But you look like a stranger, with that full 
beard, and you have grown older, and you are not 
like yourself.” 

“ I thought that might be an advantage in 
your eyes ! Where’s Eizpah ? ” 

“ Off with that child ! You will not get any so- 
ciety out of her! She lives for that child.” 

“ We will cure her of that by proving we are 
worth living for,” he said, in his old, happy voice. 


HERSELF, 


535 


“ I want to ishow you the house ; Mrs. Morehouse 
selected it, and all the Chevils have had something 
to do with it.” 

“ Has my room a grate too ? I want to see the 
fire ! We had grates in England. A house 
heated by a furnace to keep it warm and grates 
for the beauty of the fire, is my idea of comfort ! ” 

She lifted her head, dried her eyes and sprang 
up and caught his arm : “ It ^5 a gem of a house, 

just stylish enough and elegant. Servants all 
engaged, too ! Griffin, you are a jewel ! ” 

“ But the Chevils and your friend Maria are the 
setting ! And in your eyes so much depends upon 
the setting.’^ 

Eeleasing herself from his arm she held herself 
off, regarding him from head to foot with frankest 
admiration. 

“You are a splendid man, ray son.” 

“ Jewels partake of that quality,” he said with a 
laugh, but he was pleased, nevertheless, and carried 
her in triumph through the rooms up-stairs and 
down. 

“ Mother, I want a home with you.” 

“ But I will never go west ; never^' she repeated 
with emphasis ; “ you may have a home with me 
but I shall never have a home with you.” 


536 


RIZPAH^S HERITAGE. 


In his quick tone of determination he replied: 
‘‘ 1 said I wanted a home with you.” 

“But I know what you mean ; you will drag me 
ofl'out West.” 

“ Not by the hair of your head.” 

“ Only by the tendrils of my heart,” she said, 
gayly. 

“Mother, I will obey you,^’ he said, with a 
twinkle in his merry eyes. “ I always would — 
whether you wanted me to or not.” 

That evening by the back parlor grate Eizpah 
and GrifBn found each other ; Mrs. Morehouse 
went to her room early in the evening with a 
nervous headache, and Bud Chevil and Erma were 
discussing school at the dining-room table, with 
Bud’s old school books spread out upon it. 

The portiers were drawn and the light from the 
hall brightened the dark elegance of the two long 
parlors ; Eizpah was seated in the chair in which 
he had placed his mother, but her head was not 
resting upon the arm and there were no tears in her 
eyes or sobs in her voice. Her dark green dress 
was simply made, the lace at her throat was fastened 
by a single diamond, a gift from Griffin’s mother ; 
her other only ornament was Aunt Eizpah’s 
diamond upon her finger. Face and figure had 


HERSELF, 


537 


rounded during the four years of her life in 
England ; the sadness of her eyes had given place 
to steady shining peace. Eizpah Chevil was a 
satisfied woman. Her heritage was better than 
she could ask or think. 

Her companion in the chair opposite was not an 
altogether satisfied man; his present dissatisfac- 
tion seemed to consist in her present satisfaction. 

“ Eizpah, it is years since I sat on that hassock 
in Erma’s nursery ! ” ^ 

“ I know it, when I think of all the days 
between.” 

“ They are all in your face.” 

“ They have been very happy ones to me.” 

“ That is the part of them that is in your face.” 

“And I am so grateful that my little girl is a 
success.” 

“ She couldn’t be anything else.” 

“No; I think not, with what is in her. Mrs. 
Olmstead has been a moving power in her life, as 
in mine.” 

“ And will continue to be,” he said, absent-mind- 
edly, as if his thoughts were far from the child or 
her future. “ She has been — shall I say, the 
making of you ? ” 

“ She has made a great part of my happiness.” 


538 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE. 


“My mother has not been your unhappiness.” 

“Oh, no; oh, no, indeed! No sister could be 
kinder.” 

“ I know what you have been to her.” 

“ Somebody to fight against very often ; I was 
her adverse circumstance.” 

“ But you know she always yields.” 

“I did not; I had to learn it.” 

“ Do you remember — of course you do — our 
conversation that last morning ?” 

“ Every word.” 

“ I was unjust to Giles.” 

“ I am glad you were.” 

“ So am I. I did not tell him of the conversation 
until a month ago, when I could laugh over it; he 
was pretty serious, though. He is growing broader 
and he feels it; contact with men has knocked some 
things out of him ; if I may speak in such a superior 
way. He is more worthy of you now.” 

“ Griffin! Don’t be so much like yourself.” 

“ And that we talked about Blossom, the darling.” 

The two pairs of eyes instantly moistened. 

“ Eizpah, she was my blessing.” 

“Yes,” in her full tone. 

“ She always will be ; she will always be a Blos- 
som to me. She will be a girl when I am an old 


HERSELF, 


539 


man. She would be glad to know of my life in 
the West ; our little settlement is a fine place. 
You have heard of the man who passed a cabin or 
two, and six months afterward, passed that way in 
the train, and saw a village, even a store with ba- 
nanas and oranges exposed for sale. That^s the 
way we do things out there. Giles is head man; 
his enterprise aud my money have set some few 
things going. While Erma is getting her educa- 
tion, I want you and my mother to come and look 
around. Vanderveer isn’t the slowest place out 
West. In twenty-five years it will be a place 
worth talking about; and mother will not be 
ashamed that it bears my fathers name. It had 
the ugliest name, ‘ Bottle Plains,’ from some ridi- 
culous reason, but we have changed all that.” 

“Giles has finished his house, I suppose.” 

“Yes, and it is a very pretty affair.” 

“ When is yours to be begun ? ” 

“ Oh, I shall be an old bachelor, and have a cor- 
ner at his fireside. Mother will never go West, she 
contends.” 

“ And you will never come East?” 

“Not to remain. My breathing apparatus re- 
quires all Colorado to breathe in ! 1 nearly died 

with home sickness or something akin to it, the 
first three months ; but for Giles I should have 


540 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


given up — ^but for him and my health ; strength 
came by the day ; we camped out at first, you 
know — of course you know all about everything, 
and I got a little pluck into me after awhile. As 
the New Englander said, I never was out doors 
before ; and you will say so when you begin to get 
some health into the bottom of your lungs. I 
never can tell you what your letters have been to 
me ; it’s no use for me to try.” 

“ Do you think I have nothing to say ? ” 

“ Oh, my crazy scrawls gave you something to 
answer.” 

‘‘I was a stranger in a strange land too; the 
first year I was alone with Erma ; she was a great 
deal, but she was a child. I had had so much — 
those months in Switzerland were the beginning 
of my new life — I hdd letters to live on, too.” 

“ Mrs. Olmstead wrote every week ? ” 

“And the girls very often. Mrs. Chevil was 
very good to me, for Blossom’s sake. I have come 
home to very dear friends.” 

“ Mr. Snowdon will be coming to see you.” 

“ We have a great deal to say to each other. 
You know I have never seen Kinnet. The photo- 
graphs of the church and parsonage have hung in 
my room this long time ; and I told you he sent 
a large photograph of Aunt Eizpah’s dear old 
house ! I do not want go anywhere until summer- 


HERSELF. 


541 


time, and then Erma must see my precious old 
home and all the places I was a naughty girl in.” 

“ No one but Erma ? ” he said, jealously. 
“ Mother said it was no one but that child, and I 
see it is. Can’t she board at the school ? ” 

“ When I have no home for her.” 

“ Don’t speak in that determined, dignified way 
to me ; you know there are a pair of us.” 

“And Erma makes three.” 

“Only two and a half! I must take you to 
Kinnet and to Aunt Eizpah’s. Do you expect to 
go back there and bury yourself?” 

“ Not even to bury myself alive. Aunt Rizpah was 
an old woman when she went into her solitude, an 
old and disappointed woman; I do not think I shall 
ever be old enough or disappointed enough to shut 
myself up there. Erma must have every advan- 
tage, and our work must be out in the world.” 

“ Why don’t you sell it ? ” 

“Mr. Snowdon advises me to.” 

“And invest out West?” 

“Oh, he doesn’t advise that,” with a merry look. 

“ He advises Kinnet, probably.” 

“ He doesn’t advise anywhere. Perhaps he has 
^earned that I have a mind of my own.” 

“ Where is the mind of your own ? ” 

“ Exactly here, where I am, until Erma is 
through school.” 


542 


RIZPAH'S HERITAGE, 


“ Are you the child’s grandmother?” he asked, 
impatiently. 

“I am her ‘dear big sister.^ Just what your 
mother told her I was.” 

“ Would nothing induce you to leave her with 
Mrs. Olmstead ? ” 

“ Nothing would induce me to leave her with 
any one else.” 

“ She is as well off with her as with you ! ” 

“ Better, excepting that we love each other 
better.” 

“It will do her good to be away from you; 
she depends upon you for every breath she draws ; 
she will have no self-reliance ; you are spoiling her 
for a self-reliant woman.” 

Eizpah’s question was eager and anxious. 

“ Can you see that — so soon ? ” 

“ I saw it in half an hour.” 

“Mrs. Olmstead has warned me; I have been 
selfish about it.” 

“ I advise you, if my advice is worth anything 
to you, to send her to boarding-school ! .Not to 
any boarding-school, but to Mrs. Olmstead’s. 
Then she will grow up into the woman you wish 
her to be, with the start she has.” 

“ I believe that, Grifiin, you are right.” 

“ Then it will not matter whether you are here 
or at — Kinnet.” 


HERSELF, 


543 


“ What do you mean ? I shall never stay in 
Kinnet.” 

‘‘ Kinnet is merely a figure of speech/’ 

“ I wish I could go to school myself.” 

“Nonsense; how old are you ? ” 

“ I have been five years away from home — al- 
most.” 

“You were twenty-five that day I saw you first 
in the Lung’ Arno.” 

“ I was fifty, rather.” 

“ Politeness, rather than frankness, moved my 
guarded speech.” 

“ How old am I now, frankly speaking.” 

“ Oh, sixteen.” 

“Just the age to go to boarding-school,” she 
said, with a triumph in her laugh. 

“ But you are older than your years ! And you 
are growing older every day. How old was I ?” 

“ Oh, about fifteen.” 

“ Hardly that.” 

“You look thirty now.” 

“And feel forty, when I get blue.” 

“ Are you blue to-night ? ” 

“ 1 don’t know whether I am or not. You bring 
everything back to me. You bring yourself back to 
me ten times more loveable than you ever were; 
if you ever take yourself away from me I don’t 
know how I can stand it.” 


544 


RIZPAWS HERITAGE, 


Instantly she arose and went to him ; she stood 
a moment at his side, and then she laid her hand 
on his head: “ GriflBn, I will never take myself 
away from you.’’ 

“ For better or for worse !” he said, catching her 
hand- 

“For better or for worse,” she repeated, obe- 
diently, my life is all ‘ better; ’ there is no ‘ worse ’ 
in it.” 

“ Until you get me in it,” he said, looking up in- 
to her serious eyes. 

“You have been in it a long while.” 

“ That’s an admission,” he exclaimed ; “ now 
we’ll fight it through together.” 

“ Let us take it through together.” 

He was silent, understanding her perfectly. 

“ I do not want to choose any more.” 

“ Of course you don’t. Your choosing days are 
over,” was the saucy rejoinder, as he brought her 
lips down to his face. 

That night she read certain words she had 
marked long ago. Aunt Kizpah had found them 
for her. “ Thou hast given me the heritage of 
those that fear thy name.” 


N 


March, 1887. 

BOOKS 

PUBLISHED BY 

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

530 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 


THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS ; or, The Voice out 

of the Cloud. By the Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. 

i6mo ^1.25 

“ It is as fascinating as a novel, and yet overflowing with facts 
that make one wonder how it can be possible that such great progress 
has been made in missions, even during the recent years, and he not 
have known more of it. This book can but stimulate the followers of 
Christ to greater love for, and more earnest efforts in, missions.” — 
Christian Work. 

“This is a book for every Christian to read with prayer and a ' 
sincere desire to know his personal duty in this great and glorious 
work.” — New York Observer. 

“ In the little volume before us, the history of missions is un- 
rolled as a scroll, the marvellous providences of God are traced in let- 
ters which glow with the intensity of the writer’s convictions, the 
trumpet-call of God’s providences to the Christian world is sounded 
so loud and clear as to reach, one would think, the dullest ear.” — 

Baptist Herald. 

“ One of the most important books to the cause of Foreign Mis- 
sions — and through them to Home Missions also — which ever has 
been written. It should be in every library and every household. It 
should be read, studied, taken to heart, and prayed over.” — Congre- 
gationalist. 

*A. L. O. E. LIBRARY. 

50 vols., i6rho, in a neat wooden case, net 28.00 

“ All these stories have the charm and pure Christian character 
which have made the name of A. L. O. E. dear to thousands of 
homes.” — Lutheran. 

ARNOT, Rev. William. 

On the Parables. i2mo 1.75 

Church in the House; or, Lessons on the Acts of the 

Apostles. i2mo 1.50 

(I) 


BERNARD, T. D. 

The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament. lamo IP1.25 
“ The style is absolutely perfect. A broad, deep stream of fresh 
thought, in language as clear as crystal, flows through the whole de- 
vout, instructive, quickening, and inspiring work. Simply as a model 
of style, every preacher might profitably study it. . . . This volume 
makes the New Testament a new book to me.” — Rev, T. L. Cuy- 
ler, D.D. 

BICKERSTETH, Rev. E. H. 

Yesterday, To-day, and Forever. A Poem. Pocket edi- 
tion, ^0.50 ; i6mo, ^i.oo; lamo r.50 

“If any poem is destined to endure in the companionship of 
Milton’s hitherto matchless epic, we believe it will be ‘ Yesterday, 

To-day, and Forever.’” — London Globe, 

BLUNT’S Coincidences and Paley’s Horae Pau- 

linse. i2mo 1.50 

BONAR, Horatius, D.D. 

Hymns of Faith and Hope. 3 vols. i6mo 2.25 

Bible Thoughts and Themes. 6 vols. i2mo .... 12.00 

Way of Peace 0.50 

Way of Holiness 0.60 

Night of Weeping 0.50 

Morning of Joy 0.60 

Follow the Lamb 0.40 

How shall I go to God ? * 0.40 

BOWES, Rev. G. S. 

Scripture its own Illustrator. i2mo . . ‘. . . . . 1.50 

Information and Illustration. i2mo 1.50 

BRODIE, Emily. 

Jean Lindsay, The Vicar’s Daughter 1.25 

Dora Hamilton’s Choice. i2mo 1.25 

Elsie Gordon. i2mo 1.25 

Uncle Fred’s Shilling. i2mo 1.25 

Lonely Jack. i2mo - . . . . 1.25 

Ruth’s Rescue. i6mo 0.50 

Nora Clinton. i2mo 1.25 

The Sea Gull’s Nest. i6mo 0.60 

Norman and Elsie. i2mo ' . . 1.25 

Five Minutes too Late 1.25 

East and West o.6g 

His Guardian Angel 1.25 

CHARLESWORTH, Miss M. L. 

Ministering Children. lamo 

“ “ i6mo «... 1. 00 

Sequel to Ministering Children. i2mo 1.50 

“ “ “ i6mo 1. 00 

(2) 




CHARLESWORTH, Miss M. 1.,, contitmed, 

Oliver of the Mill. i2mo J^i.oo 

Dorothy Cope, containing “ The Old Looking-Glass ” and “ 

“ Broken Looking-Glass.” lamo 1,50 

CUYLER, Rev. T. X. 

Pointed Papers. 1.50 

Thought Hives. lamo 1.50 

From Nile to Norway . , . , < 1.50 

Empty Crib. 24mo i.oo 

Cedar Christian. i8mo . . . 0.75 

Stray Arrows. i8mo 0.60 

God’s Light on Dark Clouds. Flexible, red edges ... 0.7s 

“In this beautiful little volume the author presents a grateful 
offering to the ‘ desponding and bereaved.’ . . . He offers to others 


what he has tested for himself. The book is written out of a full heart 


and a vivid experience.” — Presbyterian Review. 

^D’AUBIGNE, Dr. Merle. 

^History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century. 

5 vols., i2mo, cloth, in a box 4.50 

^History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin. 8 vols., 

i2mo, cloth, in a box 8.00 

“ The work is now complete ; and these later volumes, together 
with the original five, form a library relating to the Reformation of 


incalculable value and of intense interest. The pen of this master 
of history gave a charm to everything that he touched.” — New York 
Observer. 

*A very cheap edition of Reformation in the Sixteenth 

Century. 5 vols. in one, 890 pages, cloth i.oo 

DICKSON, Rev. Alexander, D.D. 


All about Jesus. i2mo 2.00 

Beauty for Ashes. i2mo 2.00 


“ His book is a ‘ bundle of myrrh,’ and will be specially enjoyed 
by those who are in trouble.” — Rev. Dr. W. M. Taylor. 

“ Luscious as a honeycomb, with sweetness drawn from God’s 


Word.” — Rev. Dr. Cuyler. 

DRINKWATER, Jennie M. * 

Only Ned. i2mo i.ast 

Not Bread Alone. i2mo 1.25 

Fred and Jeanie. i2mo 1.25 

Tessa Wadsworth’s Discipline. i2mo 1.50 

Rue’s Helps. i2mo 1.50 

/ Electa; A Story. i2mo 1.50 

Fifteen. i2mo 1.50 

Bek’s First Corner. i2mo 1.50 

Miss Prudence." i2mo 1. 50 

The Story of Hannah. i2mo . 1.50 

That Quisset House 1.50 

Isobel’s Between-Times 1.50 


(3) 


EDWARDS, Jonathan. 

* Works. In 4 vols. 8vo , J^.oo 

“ I consider Jonathan Edwards the greatest of the sons of men.’* 

— Robert Hall. 

FRASER, Dr. D. 

Synoptical Lectures on the Books of Holy Scripture. New 

and revised edition. 2 vols. 4.50 

“ The plan is to give a general view of the scope and contents of 
each book in the Bible. It is designed not for professional students 
alone, but for all educated Christians. The careful reader will gain 
from its pages clear ideas of the arrangement, subject-matter, and 


salient features of the Sacred Scriptures .” — New York Observer. 
GIBERNE, Agnes. 

Aimee. A Tale of James II. i2mo ....... 1.50 

The Curate’s Home. i6mo 1.25 

Floss Silverthorn. i6mo 1.25 

Coulyng Castle. i6mo 1.50 

Muriel Bertram. i2mo 1.50 

The Sun, Moon, and Stars. i2mo 1.50 

The World’s Foundations ; or, Geology for Beginners. 

i2mo 1.50 

Through the Linn. i6mo 1.25 

Sweetbriar. i2mo 1.50 

Duties and Duties. i6mo 1.25 

Jacob Witherby. i6mo 0.60 

Decima’s Promise. i2mo 1.25 

Twilight Talks. i6mo 0.75 

Kathleen. lamo 1.50 

Daily Evening Rest. i8mo . . i.oo 

' Beryl and Pearl. i2mo 1.50 

Old Umbrellas. i2mo 0.90 

Among the Stars ; or, Wonders in the Sky. i2mo . . . 1.50 

Madge Hardwicke i.oo 

Father Aldur : a Water Story 1.50 

UREEN, Prof. Wm. Henry, D.D. 

The Argument of the Book of Job Unfolded. i2mo . . 1.75 


“ That ancient composition, so marvellous in beauty and so rich 
in philosophy, is here treated in a thoroughly analytical manner, and 
new depths and grander proportions of the divine original portrayed. 

It is a book to stimulate research.” — Methodist Recorder. 

Moses and the Prophets. i2mo, cloth i.oo 

“ It has impressed me as one of the most thorough and conclusive 
pieces of apologetics that has been composed for a long time. The 
critic confines himself to the positions laid down by Smith, and, with- 
out being diverted by any side issues or bringing in any other views 
of other theorists, replies to those positions in a style that carries 
conviction.” — Professor W. G. T. Shedd, D.D. 

The Hebrew Feasts. i2mo i.5fl 

(4) 



( 



r-- . r 


. * ■ % - r .- ’ -.. -s- '3 

‘ y ' - " 

'- ■'■ . ' -"T ^ V 




%:s 


••X. 


*' ■ SBSRS 


*...'* f ' • . . 

< • '. '^ - ^ V •<- • 1 . 

■”« 7 av 


^>> 


•- , ? 




•. 0 > ,, 
‘.^n .*" T ^ 


r 








.-. , . * - '*■ 

:\-v*. ■ X' •. 
-^c. .v. 




■« , 




►• •, • * » • S;^ J * •'dk> 


'Ml 




4 ^’^ 


V^ ■ ■ 


''-r 


■ 'J^i^ ■ ' ■ . 


hi -4 wv • -^ '• " 



;.v^ 


7 . 


•t ^ 




» '• 

^ t— 




^v- . 

4 ' •• ^ 




-V v-/ ^'' -'"• ' * * 

■ •■ .. ' 


•V 



' '^ , >:' ,- ■ '--I. . 

m‘l -V -. ' x. '-.^:r- ' ^' ■ 

SBffCw- •« ^ . y y '>- 

.1' Vl^"^ i: ■> ' *' " ^ ■ **^ •» t’* * j'^''?H^£- “ •• '* 


i'-.Vs-'t V'.' -ri- .-<-^- '-f f-' .' ■ , 

" ... %'. ■ -. . ■ ‘ ■ ■- L^- 

N ^ 4 ^ *^_ 1 ’ # ' ' X • • ' 

.;?^..^^'..r■.V~';^ " 
^ ^ ■■■■?' - — :.-■ ^ ‘ 


o - V- - ^?' V- .-t '' 

■• --X-’ mV ;.. ► -' * t ’■ •^ 

■ '-a:-:,' • ■ • . ■ . 






